Recent News
Today is Husky Giving Day, the one day each year where Huskies near and far come together to support the programs and organizations that make UW special. This year, UW History is focusing on our Friends of History fund. Friends of History allows us to meet the more pressing needs of the department and supports our day-today operations. Through this fund, we have…
Thanks to the generosity of donors and other supporters, the Center for the Study of the Pacific Northwest (CSPN) was able to offer a variety of well-attended events and activities for the 2025/26 academic year, both in Seattle and elsewhere.In September, before classes even began, we held our annual Cascadia Environmental History Collaborative at Pack Forest, the UW-owned property near…
A global public besieged by fears of AI got new fuel Monday from Pope Leo XIV, who released a roughly 40,000-word encyclical warning about the technologys potential to worsen inequality, erode workers dignity and automate war. Margaret O'Mara, professor of history at the UW, is quoted.Featured
on The Washington Post
Each May, faculty, staff, alumni, family, and friends come together to celebrate the academic and service achievements of UW History students at the annual History Awards. This year, we are thrilled to have awarded over $540,000 in scholarships and prizes to seventy undergraduates and four graduate students, as well as one outstanding Washington high school history teacher. This would not be…
Right now, it feels like teaching history is under attack from two sides: on the one hand there are the political elites who are pushing for a biased view of history and on the other hand, there are the technological advancements that are becoming a detriment to students' developing critical thinking skills. This sentiment dominated my recent conversation with UW History alumni who went on to…
When I entered the Freedman Remak History Community Room in Smith Hall for the History Honors Colloquium in March, I could feel the room buzzing with excitement from students eager to present the final results of months of research and writing–it was difficult to find a place to sit! Looking around, I saw plenty of undergraduates, some parents beaming with pride, and history faculty, who advised…
FacultyDan Berger was pleased to see the overhaul and relaunch of the Washington Prison History Project website, which coincided with an expansion of the project’s collection that includes dozens of new oral histories, photographs, and other donated materials. Dan presented the Washington Prison History Project during his 2026 History Lecture Series Talk.Ross Coen…
What if all the archival documents that a graduate student could ever hope to use for their dissertation research were available online? They would never have to leave Seattle. While this may seem appealing to some, so much of the experience and skills gained from research trips, such as networking with local experts, interacting with the geography of the places being studied, and finding hidden…
History faculty often look to current events for inspiration when developing new courses because, as UW history professor Charity Urbanski states, "The past is never really past." This year, the department of history offered three new undergraduate courses that are all quite relevant to our current timeline: Gender and Sexuality in Medieval Europe, taught by Urbanski, Seattle Labor History with…
OpenAI's foray into media comes just a few weeks after executives told staff to cut back on "side quests" and focus on artificial intelligence offerings for businesses. It shut down its AI video app Sora and paused plans to release an erotic chatbot. Margaret O'Mara, professor of history at the UW, is quoted.Featured
on NPR