John T. Massey
Major Field: Early Modern Europe
Minor Field: Medieval History
Degrees Conferred: B.A. History, Mathematics (Saint Peter's College)
Research Interests: Born and now living in Brooklyn, John Massey has just begun his first year at the Graduate Center. He is interested in the political theory of Machiavelli in Early Modern Italy. Other interests include war, diplomacy, and gender on the Italian peninsula in the same period. During his undergraduate studies, John wrote a senior research paper on the English Renaissance man John Dee and a thesis analyzing Machiavelli's character versus that of Castiglione's Courtier and using that as reason for the political failure of the former in his career.
Anna Pervukhin
Major Field: Early Modern Europe
Minor Field: Medieval History
Degrees Conferred: BA, Philosophy, University of Chicago; JD, University of Chicago Law School
Research Interests : My scholarship concentrates on English legal history and canon law. I am particularly interested in deodand law, under which owners were fined whenever their property was involved in the death of a human being, in ecclesiastical trials of animal groups, and in the various ways that past legal actions against animals and objects were reinterpreted by successive generations of lawyers and scholars.
Tracy E. Robey
Major Field: Early Modern Europe
Minor Field: Race and Slavery
Degrees Conferred: B.A., 2004, Grand Valley State University
Dissertation Title: "The Black Medici: Politics, Illegitimacy, Race, Sex, and Death in Renaissance Florence"
Research Interests: Raised in the aptly-named town of Clio, Michigan, Tracy Robey specializes in Renaissance Italy and plans to write her dissertation on the life and times of Duke Alessandro de' Medici of Florence (r. 1530-7). Tracy's other scholarly interests include the history of prejudice and racism from ancient times to the present, "damnation of memory" punishments in Rome and Renaissance Italy, and early modern agriculture and food history. Tracy is advised by Professor Margaret King.
T. Scott Johnson
Major Field: Modern European History
Minor Field: Intellectual History
Degrees Conferred: MPhil, History, 2012, CUNY Graduate Center; BA, History, Magna cum laude in the Honors Program, 2007 from Denison University.
Research Interests: I am interested in modern and contemporary French intellectual history. In particular, I am interested in the way intellectuals approach questions of violence and radical political action. I am also broadly interested in the history of literature, philosophy, and the social sciences.
Lauren Saxton
Major Field: Modern European history
Minor Field: Gender, Sexuality, and Medicine
Degrees Conferred: BA in History, Classical Studies, from Willamette University 2009
Research Interests: Alcohol consumption in late 19th and early 20th century France; the evolution of alcoholism as a disease paradigm
Andrew D. J. Shield
Major Field: Modern European History
Minor Field: Middle Eastern History; History of Sexuality
Degrees Conferred: B.A. 2007 (International Relations, Arabic), Brown University
Research Interests: Muslim immigration into Western Europe since WWII; Moroccan communities in the Netherlands; theories of migration and sexuality; anthropology and ethnography; gay and lesbian periodicals of the
1960s and 1970s; classified ads as sources of micro-history.
Cheryl Szetela
Major Field: Modern European History
Minor Field: Early European History
Dissertation Topic: The interaction of 19th century colonial policy & "gentlemanly capitalists" w/ Colonial Emigration Companies, British Stock Market/Business Practices & Indigenous/non-indigenous colonial populations.
Currently- P/T Associate Professor at Quinnipiac University in CT.
Ellen Zitani
Major Field: Modern European History (Italian focus)
Minor Field: Global Queer History
Degrees Conferred: M.A. Southern Connecticut State University (Women's Studies); B.A., Smith College (Women's Studies)
Research Interests: Ellen Zitani is a doctoral candidate in the Department of History. She has passed her Italian, Spanish, Written and Oral exams. Her written exam was in the field of Modern European History. Her oral exam was in the fields of Modern European History, Modern Italian History, and Global Queer History. Ellen's dissertation will focus on the conceptions of same-sex desire and gender identity in turn-of-the-century Italy.
Rebecca Amato
Major Field: U.S. History
Minor Field: History of Gender and Sexuality
Degrees Conferred: B.S., Radio-TV-Film, Northwestern University; M.A. Cinema and Cultural Studies, New York University
Dissertation Title: Destination Lower East Side: Mapping the Meaning of a Neighborhood (working title)
Research Interests: My interests converge around urban history and material and visual culture. Because cities swirl with creativity, experimentation, conflict, and destruction, my research also touches on race, ethnicity, class, gender, and sexuality.
Michael Brenes
Major Field: American History
Minor Field: African American History
Degrees Conferred: B.A., History and Thomas Hunter Honors,
Hunter College; M. Phil., Graduate Center, City University of New York
Dissertation Title: For Right and Might: The Cold War and the Making
of Big-Government Conservatism
Research Interests: My research interests include post-1945 American political culture, the history of U.S. foreign relations, and social movements. My dissertation examines how the Cold War enabled conservatives to alter
the structure of the federal government in the postwar era. I show how
conservatives relied on the expansion of the federal government after
1945—in particular the increase in the size of the military and
foreign policy establishment—to further their foreign and domestic
policy agenda. I argue that conservatives' demand for a more assertive
foreign policy during the Cold War spurred the creation of
"big-government conservatism," as conservatives were unwilling to
reduce the scope of the federal government related to matters of
national defense. I intend to demonstrate how the conservative
movement's support for the Cold War not only strengthened their cause,
but restrained them from preventing the growth of the federal state. I
can be contacted at mbrenes@gc.cuny.edu.
Geoff G. Burrows
Major Field: U.S. History
Minor Field: Latin American History
Degrees Conferred: B.A. UC Berkeley (1995), M.A. Hunter College (2008)
Dissertation Topic: The New Deal in Puerto Rico.
Research Interests: Comprising both a top-down focus on how the New Deal was implemented in Puerto Rico and a bottom-up analysis of how it was received by Puerto Ricans, this project will critically examine the political and economic relationship between the United States and Puerto Rico during the Great Depression and after. This project will attempt to: fill an important gap in the historiography of the New Deal; affirm that Puerto Rico has a central role in U.S. history; join an ongoing reevaluation of the economic under-development that has plagued Puerto Rico, the Caribbean, and Latin America as a whole.
Lawrence Cappello
Major Field: U.S. History
Minor Field: Latin American History
Degrees Conferred: B.A., History & English & American Studies, CUNY Queens College Research Interests: Social, political, and cultural history -- particularly the history of American privacy.
Lawrence Cappello will publish “In Harm’s Way: The Lawrence Textile Strike Children’s Affair” in an edited volume on the 1912 Bread and Roses Strike from Baywood Publishing. The book will be part of its series – Work, Health, and Environment.
Rachel Burstein
Major Field: United States History
Minor Field: African American History
Degrees Conferred: BA in History, Swarthmore College (2004); MPhil in
History, CUNY Graduate Center (2010)
Dissertation Title: "The Fight Over John Q.: How Labor Won and Lost the Public in Postwar America, 1947-1959"
Research Interests: My dissertation examines the public relations strategies of the AFL and CIO in the postwar period. I argue that organized labor came to deploy the same messages to the non-unionized public and to its own members in the 1950s through a set of four case studies: labor's campaign against the passage of Taft-Hartley; the expulsion from the CIO of federation unions with communist ties; the AFL and CIO merger; and union racketeering hearings, expulsions and Landrum-Griffin.
Jeff Diamant
Major Field: American History
Minor Field: Middle Eastern History
Degrees Conferred: B.A. in Political Science and International Studies, Yale University
Research Interests: My research interests involve American religious history since 1945, especially regarding African-American Muslims. I am also interested in the intersection of religion and politics in the United States. Before entering the doctoral program in 2010, I was a newspaper reporter who covered religious affairs for the Star-Ledger in New Jersey. Earlier, I covered crime and courts for the Charlotte Observer in North Carolina and government issues for the Palm Beach Post in Florida. I can be reached at jeff_diamant@hotmail.com .
David J. Gary
Major Field: American History
Minor Field: Middle Eastern History
Degrees Conferred: B.A. History, Gettysburg College (2000)
Research Interests: My primary interest is in the 18th century, with an emphasis on the late colonial era and the early republic. Topics that appeal to me include the American Enlightenment, book history, the culture of gentility, as well as political and diplomatic history. I am currently working on a project examining the role of gentility in the Society of the Cincinnati. My planned dissertation will examine the intellectual and cultural influences of Rufus King, an early republic U.S. Senator and American Minister to Great Britain (1796-1803). A large part of my research will involve examining his 5,000 volume library. I am also part of the team cataloging the Henry Knox Papers at the Gilder Lehrman Collection.
Sean Griffin
Major Field: U.S. History
Minor Field: Urban History
Degrees Conferred: B.A., American Studies, City College of New York
Research Interests: My interests lie in nineteenth-century American political and cultural history, and include antislavery politics and the abolition movement, African-American political culture, immigration, and the use of public space in the nineteenth-century city.
Ben Hellwege
Major Field: American History
Minor Field: Middle Eastern History
Degrees Conferred: B.A. in History, The University of Chicago (2005)
Research Interests: Currently, my research interests include urban, political, and labor history. I am primarily interested in how political power can be used by both individuals and institutions, and in turn how the use of that power reflects the limits of democracy. Prior to commencing my studies at the Graduate Center I worked as a research analyst and as an editorial assistant.
David Houpt
Major Field: American History
Minor Field: TBD
Degrees Conferred: BA-The George Washington University, 2005; MA-George Mason University, 2009
Selected Publication: "Securing A Legacy: The Publication of James Madison's Notes from the Constitutional Convention" The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography Winter 2010
Research Interests: My research interests are in the political culture of the Early American Republic. I am interested in Congress, elections, and the Enlightenment in America. My Master's thesis was entitled "Mysteries in Politiks: The Second Congressional Elections in the Districts of Worcester and Maine."
Mariel Isaacson
Major Field: US History
Minor Field: Urban History
Degrees Conferred: BFA New York University, 2002; MA in History, New York University, 2006.
Dissertation Title: Pittsburgh's Response to Deindustrialization: Renaissance, Renewal and Recovery, 1946-1999.
Research Interests: I'm interested in deindustrialization, particularly how cities respond to the loss of industry and generate plans for recovery. My dissertation examines the role of urban planning in preventing deindustrialization in Pittsburgh. I'm also interested in New York City history and urban development.
Micki Kaufman
Major Field: US History (20th C)
Minor Field: World / International History
Degrees Conferred: B.A., U.S. History with Highest Honors, Columbia University. A.A., Simon's Rock of Bard College
Research Interests:
My research focuses on computational research in U.S. diplomatic and international history, most recently an analysis of the tenure of Henry Kissinger as National Security Advisor and Secretary of State using a large collection of the DNSA's declassified U.S. government archives dated 1968-1977. I am co-author of an article on Cold War wargaming and technology forecasting in the December 2012 American Historical Review titled "General, I Have Fought Just as Many Nuclear Wars As You Have," and I received a 2012-2013 Provost's Digital Innovation Grant to expand my research to include additional databases including the 'Foreign Policy Files' of the US State Department (NARA Secret Record Group 59). I have taught undergraduate history at Hunter College and have served as the Technology Coordinator for the Hertog Global Strategy Initiative's 2011 "Summer Fever" and 2010 “Nuclear Summer” research programs.
Carl Lindskoog
Major Field: American History
Minor Field: Latin American History
Degrees Conferred: M. Phil., History (Graduate Center, CUNY), M.A., History (Northern Illinois University), B.A., History (University of Iowa)
Dissertation Title: Haitian Workers and the Labor Movement in New York and South Florida, 1971-2001
Research Interests: My research sits at the intersection of labor, immigration and urban history in late-twentieth century America. My dissertation narrates the development of the Haitian communities in New York and South Florida from a labor history perspective and, in the process, highlights the importance of place in the historical experience of this group of immigrant workers. I am currently teaching courses on contemporary America (1945-present) and U.S. labor history at Queens College.
Gwynneth C. Malin
Major Field: American History
Minor Field: Modern European History
Degrees Conferred: B.A., History, Columbia University; M.A., History, New York University; Advanced Certificate in Archival Management, New York University.
Dissertation Title: How Water Became Public
Research Interests: My research interests include social reform and comparative urban history, especially the intersection between local government, natural resources, and infrastructure/public works in 19th century New York.
Joe Murphy
Major Field: American History
Minor Field: European History
Research Interests: With a focus on the printed debates of the early American republic, I study the rhetorical styles that "middling" and elite writers used to claim intellectual authority. I try to show how competing interpretations of events in the press (such as the Genet Affair of 1793) relate to class interests, political ideologies, and divergent readings of the Constitution. In the course of my studies, I have become fascinated with the language the Founders used to justify and defend the Constitution, and how that language was borrowed, rejected, or transformed by middling and plebeian writers in the press. I have also written about competing newspaper accounts of early American Indian policy and plan to do something similiar regarding an aspect of slavery. In the future, too, I plan to bring a transatlantic perspective to my work, particularly with regard to the development of public opinion in late eighteenth-century France and England.
Brendan O'Malley
Major Field: American History (19th C)
Minor Field: Urban History
Degrees Conferred: B.A. with Departmental Honors in History, Vassar College, 1992; M. Phil. in U.S. History, Graduate Center, 2009
Selected Publications: Co-editor of _Home Fronts: A Wartime America Reader_ (New Press, 2008) with Michael S. Foley
Fellowships: Chancellor's Fellow, 2006-2009; Writing Fellow, 2009-Present
Dissertation Title: Before Ellis Island: The Castle Garden Emigrant Depot, 1855-1890.
Abstract: Today it is hard to imagine that anything of importance ever happened at the Castle Clinton site in Battery Park in Manhattan. In a city filled with spectacular architecture—vertiginous skyscrapers and soaring bridges—the humble reddish-brown sandstone fort barely registers. The crudely hewn walls, twenty feet high and eight feet thick, look almost a product of nature rather than one of human hands. Robert Moses nearly succeeded in leveling the structure in 1941 to make way for his never-built Battery-to-Brooklyn bridge. Looking upon the old fort, it seems incongruous that it was once the site where over eight million immigrants anxiously awaited entry into the United States between 1855 and 1890, in a space with “less volume than a Staples,” as one blogger recently put it. Most Americans have heard of Ellis Island. They learn about it in school, by watching movies like The Godfather II, or even by visiting the museum on Ellis Island itself that opened with great fanfare in 1990. Many Americans whose ancestors came from Europe to the United States in the nineteenth century assume their predecessors arrived via that storied facility. But the federal immigration station on Ellis Island did not open its doors until 1892. If anyone’s ancestors emigrated from Europe to the United States in the latter half of the nineteenth century, odds are that they passed through the Castle Garden Emigrant Landing Depot at the tip of Manhattan. A central aim of this dissertation is to recover and restore the critical place that the Castle Garden Emigrant Depot has in the history of immigration to the United States.
Glen Olson
Major Field: American History
Minor Field: Latin American History
Degrees Conferred: B.A. St. Johns College, Santa Fe; M.A. University of Chicago
Research Interests: My research interests of the 19th century include immigration, urban life, and political history. Currently, I am working on a project on conceptions of citizenship pertaining to Irish and German immigrants in 1850's New York.
Laura Ping
Major Field: American History
Minor Field: Women's History
Degrees Conferred: M.A. (2007) Virginia Commonwealth University, History ; B.A. (2005) University of Iowa, History
Research Interests: My academic interests include the Antebellum and Civil War eras and how concepts of freedom and nationalism effected women's concepts of identity. I am also interested in how material culture effected women's experiences and most recently have done research on the effects of the bloomer costume on antebellum reform.
Paul Polgar
Major Field: American History
Minor Field: African American History
Degrees Conferred: M. Phil. (2009) CUNY Graduate Center, History; M.A. (2007) George Mason University, History; BS (2004) Boston University, Journalism
Dissertation Title: To Be Free and Equal: Reconceptualizing the History of American Abolitionism
Research Interests: My research interests lie in the early American republic with a specific concentration in slavery, race, and antislavery reform. My dissertation reconceptualizes the nation's often overlooked first movement to end human bondage by analyzing gradual emancipation and abolitionism in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Mid-Atlantic. Recent publications include "'To Raise Them to an Equal Participation': Early National Abolitionism, Gradual Emancipation and the Promise of African American Citizenship," Journal of the Early Republic, Vol. 31, No. 2 (Summer 2011), 229-258 and "'Whenever They Judge it Expedient': The Politics of Partisanship and Free Black Voting Rights in Early National New York," American Nineteenth Century History, Vol. 12, Issue 1 (March 2011), 1-23. Website: http://gc-cuny.academia.edu/PaulPolgar/About
Brian Sholis
Major Field: US History
Minor Field: Modern European History
Research Interests: I am interested in the urban history of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. My specific interests include informal or non-institutional education efforts; radical politics; architecture and urban planning; and photography.
Katie Uva
Major Field: American History
Minor Field: Urban History
Degrees Conferred: B.A. Boston University, American Studies & Classics
Research Interests: My academic interests include American cultural history, urban history, and New York City history.
Erin Wuebker
Major Field: U.S. History
Minor Field: Modern European History
Degrees Conferred: B.A., History & Art History, Beloit College (2007), M.Phil, History, CUNY Graduate Center (2012)
Research Interests: I am interested in the history of public health and medicine, women and gender, and visual culture. My dissertation looks at the public health campaign to "stamp out" syphilis, 1936-1948. The focus will be on the leadership role of Dr. Thomas Parran, Surgeon General of the US Public Health Service and how other organizations and communities supported or challenged the federal VD control program. I hope to analyze the ways in which gender, race, the context of the Great Depression, and mobilization for WWII shaped ideas and policies related to syphilis. It will also highlight how films, posters, infographics, pamphlets, and other visual materials were used during this period to educate the public about venereal disease
Zachary Berman
Major Field: Modern Middle East
Minor Field: Modern Europe
Degrees Conferred: BA in Religious Studies from UC Berkeley
Status in Program: ABD
Dissertation Title: Zubayr Pasha and Developments in the Nineteenth Century Nile Valley Slave Trade
Research Interests: My research focuses on changes in the slave trade between Sudan and Egypt during the beginning of British control over Egypt, and particularly on the life of Zubayr Pasha, the most well-known participant in that trade.
Jeffrey Culang
Major Field: Middle Eastern History
Minor Field: Jewish History
Degrees Conferred: B.A., Ithaca College; M.A., New York University
Status in Program: Second Year
Research Interests: My research focuses on religion and secularism in Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean during the late 19th and 20th century. I am tracing intellectual and social transformations associated with the introduction of concepts such as nationality and citizenship.
David Heayn
Major Field: Medieval History
Minor Field: Ancient History
Degrees Conferred: B.A. in History, Villanova University (2007); M.A. in History, Villanova University (2009)
Status in Program: Level II
Research Interests: My primary eresearch interests are in the broad swath of time encompassed by the term Late Antiquity, (Late Roman/ Early Byzantine/ Early Medieval and the Early Islamic periods). I concentrate on the Eastern Mediterranean, particularly the Levant but have significant interests in southern Arabia, the Transcaucasus region, and North Africa. The thematic concentration of my work is in the socio-cultural and religious conflict and syncretism of transitional regions and periods.So far my research has been wide ranging but I am primarily interested in the Byz-lamic socio-cultural interaction in the 7th through 9th centuries, especially liminal identity, indigenous peoples, and revolt.
Chris Rominger
Major Field: Middle East (Modern)
Minor Field: Modern Europe
Degrees Conferred: BA (History), Middlebury College
Status in Program: Level I
Research Interests: I am interested in religious and intellectual reform in the late 19th-century and early 20th-century Arab world, and particularly, the intersections of these elite currents of reform with social movements in Egypt and Greater Syria.
Beth Ryne
Major Field: Middle East
Minor Field: Gender and Sexuality
Degrees Conferred: B.A., SUNY Purchase; M.A., Tel Aviv University Research Interests: I am interested in 19th- and 20th-century Egyptian history, gender, colonialism, and intersections of race, religion, and class with sexuality, and violence.
Seçil Yilmaz
Major Field: Middle East
Minor Field: Gender and History of Medicine
Degrees Conferred: M.A. Boğaziçi University, B.A. Middle East Technical University
Status in Program: Level 2
Dissertation Title: (preliminary) Social History of Syphilis in the 19th Century Ottoman Empire
Research Interests: With an emphasis on the making of modern state and medical bureaucracy, I work on genealogies of power and gender dynamics by concentrating on syphilis in the 19th Century Ottoman Empire. I am interested the workings of modern medicine in the framework of construction of femininity and masculinity. I am co-organizing Dissection Seminars http://centerforthehumanities.org/content/dissections-body-space-and-time-middle-east-and-north-africa
Ran Zwigenberg
Major Field: Modern East Asia/Japan
Minor Field: Modern Europe
Degrees Conferred: Hunter College CUNY (B.A)
Status in Program:Second year
Research Interests: My primary research is on the changing and contested place of Hiroshima, its memorial sites and the bomb's survivors in postwar Japanese society. I am particularly interested in studying these issues through a comparative framework which includes the experiences of Israelis and Germans in relation to the Shoa. Other interests and prior research include Japanese intellectual history, in particular Japanese Marxism and the Kyoto school, and the Japanese colonial empire, particularly Manchuria.