History Department Newsletters (PDF): F06 S06   Faculty News for Fall 2006 Kevin Adams is currently revising his dissertation on the interplay of class, race, and ethnicity in the post- Civil War frontier Army for publication by the University of Oklahoma Press. Earlier incarnations of this work have been presented at annual meetings for the Society of Military History, the Western Historical Association, and, most recently, the Organization of American Historians, where he presented a segment of his research on the work culture of the frontier Army at the 2006 annual meeting in Washington D.C. Leslie Heaphy has edited Black Baseball in Chicago (McFarland Publishing, 2006) and, with Mel May, The Encyclopedia of Women in Baseball (McFarland Publishing, 2006). Mary Ann Heiss participated in a week-long teacher institute, “The Causes and Consequences of the Cold War,” at the Harry S. Truman Library in Independence, Missouri, in July, at which she presented “Decolonization on a World Stage: Anglo-American Handling of Colonial Questions at the United Nations, 1945-1963.” She also published “Culture and U.S. Relations with the Middle East” in a special issue of the Organization of American Historians Magazine of History titled “The U.S. and the Middle East.” Leonne M. Hudson served as chair and commentator for a panel of the Ohio Regional Conference of Phi Alpha Theta at Ashland University in April 2006. He also chaired two sessions of the Ohio Academy of History at Muskingham College in April. The following month, Hudson presented "General Lee and the Enlistment of Black Soldiers" at the Conference on the Civil War at the University of Mississippi. Patti Kameya joined the history department at Kent State University in August 2006. She defended her dissertation, “Paupers, Poets, and Paragons: Eccentricity as Virtue in Kinsei kijinden (Eccentrics of our times, 1790)” in the spring of 2006, and is preparing the manuscript for publication. She specializes in the cultural and intellectual history of Tokugawa Japan (1600-1868), and her research interests include gender, the formation of national identity, intellectual exchange within Northeast Asia, and borderlands such as Okinawa and Hokkaido. Assad Pino presented “Jihad in the Land of the Kaafir: Muslim Slaves and Free Persons in Nineteenth-century Salvador, Brazil," Latin American Studies Association, San Juan, Puerto Rico, and “A Revolutionary Pedagogy for the African Diaspora in Latin America,” at the Association for the Study of World African Diaspora Conference in Rio de Janiero, Brazil (“Diasporic Encounters and Collaborations”) Rebecca Pulju presented a paper at the Society for French Historical Studies conference at the University of Illinois in March 2006. She received a small fellowship that allowed her to spend June in Paris working at the French national library and national archives. Pulju’s paper, presented earlier at the Western Society for French Historical Studies, was published in the conference proceedings in spring 2006, and her article, “Consumers for the Nation: Women, Politics and Consumer Organization in France, 1944-1965,” came out in the Journal of Women’s History at the end of August. Richard Steigmann-Gall is currently finishing his contributions to two collaborative projects. One is the chapter on “religion and the churches” in The Oxford Short History of Germany: The Third Reich, the other a chapter on Germany for a forthcoming volume on “Clerical Fascism” published by Routledge. Meanwhile, his book, The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919-1945 (Cambridge UP) continues to generate scholarly debate. Three review essays have recently explored various aspects of the work: Milan Babík’s piece in History and Theory examines the question of Nazism as a “secular religion”; Mark Ruff’s article in Catholic Historical Review compares Holy Reich with a recent German-language monograph on a similar topic; and Neil Gregor’s extended review essay in Journal of Modern History explores the larger implications of the book for Third Reich historiography. In addition, in 2007 the Journal of Contemporary History will publish a symposium on Holy Reich, bringing together five scholars from Europe and North America, and concluding with a rejoinder by the author. Clarence E. Wunderlin, Jr., has published the final volume (1949-1953), of The Papers of Robert A. Taft, 4 vols. (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1997-2006). Graduate Student News for Fall 2006 Doctoral Students Nathan Fry presented “A Reaction to the Trent Affair: International Crisis or a Bump in the Road?” at the April 8, 2006, Annual Meeting of the Ohio Academy of History. Bryan Kvet, a first-year Ph.D. student, has returned to Kent State after an extended period of wandering in the Colorado wilderness. He will resume his study of American film as a reflection of societal attitudes and norms. Kelly M. McFarland, a third-year Ph.D. student, presented “Language, Gender, and Orientalism in U.S.- Egyptian Foreign Policy, 1952-1956” at the April 8, 2006, Annual Meeting of the Ohio Academy of History. Julie A. Mujic, a second-year Ph.D. student, presented “’Their Deeds of Darkness Cannot Be Concealed’: The Anti-Abolitionist Attack on Cincinnati’s 1840s Underground Railroad” at the April 8, 2006, Annual Meeting of the Ohio Academy of History. Mujic also presented at Borderlands IV: the Underground Railroad conference at the University of Northern Kentucky. She serves as treasurer of Phi Alpha Theta. Matthew T. Phillips, a second-year Ph.D. student, presented “Becoming a Hun: Changing Perceptions of Kaiser Wilhelm in American Discourse, 1912-1917” at the April 8, 2006, Annual Meeting of the Ohio Academy of History. Melissa Steinmetz, a second-year Ph.D. student, is serving as Phi Alpha Theta president and graduate student coordinator for the department’s World History Interest Group (WHIG) reading colloquium. Thomas Weyant, a second-year Ph.D. student, is serving as Graduate Student Senate Representative for the department and secretary of Phi Alpha Theta. M.A. Students Carole Avella, a second-year M.A. student, has joined the department’s graduate program after teaching a variety of honors and advanced placement history courses at the high school level. Her research interest is American culture of the 1920s and 1930s. Mathew Brundage, a second-year M.A. student with a research specialization in “Domestic British Perceptions of the Chinese during the First Opium War,” is serving as the newsletter editor for Phi Alpha Theta. Nicole George, a first-year M.A. student, has an interest in the uses of propaganda during the American Revolution. Annamae Heiman, a former dancer who has started the M.A. program, is an historical interpreter at Hale Farm. She has an interest in Irish history and studies and teaches Irish dance. Jeffrey O’Leary, a first-year M.A. student, has an interest in 19th century U.S. foreign relations. John Oswalt, a second-year M.A. student, presented “Seeing Red: The Effects of Foreign Policy on American Film as Seen in the Portrayals of Communists” at the April 8, 2006, Annual Meeting of the Ohio Academy of History. Andrew Tremel, a first-year M.A. student, has a research interest in 19th century U.S. history. Faculty News Spring 2006 Kenneth J. Bindas, recently promoted to the rank of professor, is completing a new book, “Hoover Chickens and Other Tales of the Great Depression: Oral History, Memory and the American South,” which is under contract with the University Press of Florida for publication in the fall of 2006. He presented “Contradiction of Identity: A Comparison of Swing and Hillbilly Music in the 1930s,” at the Western Social Science Association Annual Meeting, in April 2005. In addition, Bindas organized the NEH Landmark Workshop, “Steel-making in Cleveland,” July 11-15, 2005 and has published book reviews in Business History Review, Popular Music & Society, and Gulf South Historical Review. Mary Ann Heiss presented “Oil, Allies, Anti-communism, and Nationalism: U.S. Interests in the Middle East since 1945,” at “The Anglo-American Middle East,” a conference at the Norwegian Technical University, Trondheim, May 2005. Later that summer she participated in two Teaching American History institutes at Bowling Green State University: for “History Links” she presented units on U.S. policy before Pearl Harbor and the Anglo-American special relationship during World War II and for “Expanding America” she covered the Arab-Israeli conflict and gender and cultural issues in U.S. relations with the Middle East. She published “On Becoming the Dictatress of the World,” in “John Gaddis’s Surprise, Security, and the American Experience: A Roundtable Critique,” Passport: The Newsletter of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations 36, No. 2 (August 2005): 7, 8-9. Hongshan Li published “Recent ‘Anti-Americanism’ in China: Historical Roots and Impact” in China’s Foreign Policy Making: Social Forces and Chinese American Policy, ed. Yufan Hao and Su Lin (Hampshire, UK: Ashgate Publishing, 2005), 41-68, and “Teaching Modern United States History at Wuhan University,” in Perspectives 5 (September 30, 2004): 44 47. Assad Pino authored the following encyclopedia entry, “Latin America,” in The Seventies in America, ed. John C. Super (Pasadena, CA: Salem Press. 2006), 543-45. He also presented “A Revolutionary Pedagogy for the African Diaspora in Latin America” at the Association for the Study of World African Diaspora Conference in Rio de Janiero, Brazil, “Diasporic Encounters and Collaborations,” in October 2005. In March 2005, Pino presented “A Day in the Mind of the Malê: Muslim Slaves and Free Blacks in Nineteenth-century Salvador, Brazil,” at the Southwest Social Science Association, Annual Meeting, in New Orleans. In 2005, Pino also contributed to the video Globalization and Latin America: Another World is Possible, produced by Lakeland Community College, Ohio. Thomas C. Sosnowski published “Revolutionary Emigres and Exiles in the United States: Problems of Economic Survival in a New Republican Society,” revised version of a paper presented at the George Rude Seminar on French History (Melbourne, Australia; July 2004), in French History and Civilization: Papers from the George Rude Seminar (2005), 45-52, and “A ‘Noble” Attraction: French Revolutionary Exiles in the Trans-Appalachian West,” revised version of a paper presented to the Ohio Academy of History (April 2003), in Proceedings of the Ohio Academy of HIstory (Spring 2005), 31-40. In addition, he served as commentator and chair for a session of the Consortium on Revolutionary Europe in Lakeland, Florida, 17-19 February 2005, commented at a session of the Western Society for French History in Colorado Springs, Colorado, 27-29 October 2005, and commented at a session of the Consortium on the Revolutionary Era, 2-4 Mar. 2006 in Atlanta, Ga. Richard Steigmann-Gall’s book, The Holy Reich (Cambridge UP, 2003), came out in Italian and Portuguese translations in the last year, with Spanish and Greek editions forthcoming. He’s been involved in several collaborative projects, including one with the Holocaust Museum on antisemitism and the Holocaust – with a conference volume out in 2007 through Indiana UP – and another on “Clerical Fascism” in Oxford, with a conference volume forthcoming through Routledge. He continues to serve as director of the Jewish Studies Program. Clarence E. Wunderlin, Jr., recently promoted to the rank of professor, published Robert A. Taft: Ideas, Tradition, and Party in U.S. Foreign Policy in the series “Biographies in American Foreign Policy,” ed. Joseph A. Fry (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005). Graduate Student News Kim M. Carey, a second-year doctoral student, presented “African American Political Power” at American Association of African American Historians Conference; February 2006, Baton Rouge, La. Monika J. Flaschka, a second-year doctoral student, is conducting a reevaluation of Nazi racial ideology through the lens of gender and sexuality. She has presented three papers: two on the subject of women’s gender identity in both wartime concentration camp life and in postwar life, and one paper on the question of Nazi racial ideology. Nathan Fry, a fourth-year doctoral student, is taking candidacy exams this semester and preparing for dissertation research. Steve Haynes, a fourth-year doctoral student, is beginning dissertation research on how the League of Nations affected U.S.-Latin American relations during the 1920s Republican Ascendancy. Kelly M. McFarland, a second-year doctoral student, presented “Language, Gender, and Orientalism: U.S.-Egyptian Foreign Policy, 1952-1956,” at the Ohio Academy of History Annual Meeting, April 8, at Muskingum College. Julie A. Mujic, a first-year doctoral student, recently reviewed Thomas E. Schneider, Lincoln’s Defense of Politics: The Public Man and His Opponents in the Crisis over Slavery (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2006) in  History: Review of New Books. She presented “‘Their Deeds of Darkness Cannot Be Concealed’: The Anti-Abolitionist Attack on Cincinnati’s 1840s Underground Railroad,”  at the Ohio Academy of History and will present “‘Cincinnati as the Grand Rendezvous of Negro Stealers’: Anti-Abolitionism and the Underground Railroad,” at the Borderlands Conference at Univ. of Northern Kentucky. Matthew T. Phillips, a first-year doctoral student, presented “Becoming a Hun: Changing Perceptions of Kaiser Wilhelm in American Discourse, 1912-1917,” at the Ohio Academy of History Annual Meeting, April 8 at Muskingum College. Melissa Steinmetz, a first-year doctoral student, is conducting research on Cold War Era Civil Defense in Cleveland, Ohio. Thomas Weyant, a first-year doctoral student, is History Department Senator, Graduate Student Senate, and is serving on the Colloquium Organizing Committee, GSS, and the Awards Committee, GSS. He presented “Crumbled Pillar and Internal Strife:  The Struggle Between National Security Adviser Brzezinski and Secretary of State Vance to Dominate U.S. Policy Toward Iran” at the Phi Alpha Theta Graduate Student Colloquium, Kent State University, on April 17. Masters Assistants: Leslie A. Banks, a second-year masters student, will presented a portion of her thesis on Antisemitism and Gender Relations in France, 1936-1942 at the Phi Alpha Theta Graduate Student Colloquium, on April 17. Joshua Bauman, a second-year masters student, presented papers drawn from his thesis research at both the “Trajectories of Memory” conference at Bowling Green State University and the Ohio Academy of History annual meeting. DaJuan Beaty, a second-year masters student, is writing a thesis on “The Akron Plan,” the integration process in the Akron Public Schools. Jeffrey Fuller, a second-year masters student, presented a paper drawn from his thesis research at the Ohio Academy of History, April 8, 2006. Fuller has served as Graduate Student Senate Advocacy Chair, meeting with Ohio Representatives in the U.S. Congress about higher education legislation and drafting a domestic partner benefits resolution that was adopted by GSS and used as a model for a similar resolution adopted by the KSU Faculty Senate. Dennis Geffert, a second-year masters student, is completing his second Public History internship at Cuyahoga Community College West’s Crile Archives, a repository of the historic Crile site’s military, medical, and educational heritage. He has been working with Dr. James Banks, Professor Emeritus of History at Cuyahoga Community College. He presented “Strike One,” a paper on the 1942 Doolittle Raid, at the Ohio Academy of History annual meeting at Muskingum College on April 8. John Oswalt, a second-year masters student, is writing a thesis on American perceptions of communists in the mid-twentieth century. He presented a paper on the Office of War Information and the Hollywood production of The North Star during World War II at both the Ohio Academy of History annual meeting and the Phi Alpha Theta Graduate Student Colloquium. Rebecca Spang, a second-year masters student, is writing a thesis on the public executions of women in Pennsylvania and their influence on death penalty policy. Adam Webb, a first-year masters student, is conducting research on Imperial Germany,  Religion, and Nationalism. In 2005, he served as an assistant to the editor of The Jungle in the Bedford Books Series in History and Culture.