E-Newsletter - Autumn 2021

Letter from the Chair

 

Dear Friends,

Greetings from Smith Hall, which is surrounded by trees whose colors this year are especially majestic. It is such a good feeling to be back on campus, even if the new “normal” is different from life on campus prior to the launch of the pandemic in March 2020. There is much to celebrate. We have a near-record number of students taking history courses, and the number of majors in 2021 increased 13 percent from 2020. And we are delighted to welcome two new colleagues to the Department of History this fall: Dianne S. Harris, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, and Bianca Dang, Donald W. Logan Endowed Chair of American History, who recently defended her dissertation at Yale University. But it is also a time for mourning. The department has suffered a great loss. Our hearts are heavy as we grieve the passing of Linda Nash, a distinguished historian of U.S. environmental history. Linda passed away on October 17, 2021, of lymphoma, and our thoughts are with her husband, Jim Hanford, and their children, Peter and Helen.

We would like to thank our faculty, staff, and students for the tremendous effort they’ve put into their work over the last two years. I would also like to thank our alumni and donors, whose generous support helped us carry on with our mission through the pandemic, provide much-needed resources for remote teaching, and distribute over $25,000 in emergency funding to history students who were facing dire financial stress due to COVID-19. As we approach the end of 2021, please consider including the Department of History in your year-end donations. Gifts made to the Friends of History will go directly toward supporting faculty research and course development, planning public events like the ongoing Sports History Lecture Series, and running the History Writing Center, an invaluable resource for undergraduate and graduate students.

With best wishes,

Glennys Young

Professor and Chair, Department of History

Professor of International Studies

The History Lecture Series is back this January! This year, three faculty members will give talks about the history of global capitalism, and the series will come to a close with an interactive panel featuring all three lecturers. The 2022 History Lecture Series will be moderated by Professor Charity Urbanski. Save the dates: January 19, January 26, February 2, and February 9 Reserve your spot: https… Read more
This fall we are welcoming a new historian to the history department faculty, Professor Bianca Dang. Professor Dang received her training at Stanford and Yale, where she specialized in American history and African American studies. History students have had the chance to study with Professor Dang in an introductory colloquium this fall, and she will teach lecture and seminar courses this winter Professor Dang joins the department as the Donald W. Logan Family Endowed Chair in American History.… Read more
This year the Department of History teamed up with the UW Continuum College (UWC²) to retool two history courses to reflect the state of the art in distance learning.  The courses were Professor Adam Warren’s History of Mexico: Culture, Identity, and the Politics of Rule from the Aztecs to the Present and Dr. Eric Johnson’s History of the… Read more
Every professor and TA wants to showcase their undergraduates’ stellar work. Now, thanks to a group of dedicated undergraduates, there is a way for students to share their ideas and research with others at the University of Washington and beyond. The Historical Review at UW is a new forum for publishing long-form research topics. Founded by a mix of history and non-history majors in November 2019, it allows… Read more
History courses aim to sharpen students’ critical thinking abilities, teach the differences between types of sources and how to analyze their contexts and meaning, and practice argumentative writing. In winter 2022, students can choose from more than 30 course offerings in history. The following courses cover a variety of places around the world, and they all provide students with methods and skills to understand some of the key events in the 20th century. Find more information on these… Read more
Written by Professor Emeritus John Findlay The Department of History mourns the death of Professor Linda Nash (1962-2021), a distinguished scholar and teacher of American environmental history.   She passed away from lymphoma on October 17, 2021. Linda Nash was born and raised in southern California.  She matriculated at Stanford University where in 1984 she was awarded degrees “with distinction” in History as well as Engineering, a rare and telling combination.  She went to work at a… Read more
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