History Department

Bedros Torosian will join the UC Davis Department of History in Fall 2024 as a UC Davis Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellow. Currently finishing his PhD in History at UC Irvine, Torosian's research examines the intersections of race and gender among writers in Ottoman Arab and Armenian diasporas in the early twentieth century. At UC Davis, he will develop his dissertation into a book while collaborating with faculty in Middle East studies, migration studies, and human rights.

Second-year PhD student Francisca Espinosa not only published her first book, Justicia material y políticas de consumo en el gobierno de la Unidad Popular (1970-1973 (Santiago: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2024), but a leading newspaper, La Tercera, cited it as one of the must reads in 2024! Congrats Francisca!

Learn more about the American plunder of antiquities in Mandate Syria in Ph.D. student Charles Sills’ article "Cultural Imperialism and the American Scramble for Antiquities in Mandate Syria, 1920-1939." in the July 2023 issue of Middle Eastern Studies!

Charles' article can be found here!

Congratulations to former Ph.D. graduate Renzo Aroni, who has begun an assistant professor position in the History Department at Pontificia Universidad Católica, in Lima!

Congratulations to Ph.D. graduate Laura Tavolacci!

She has been appointed in a tenure-track position at the Department of Historical Sciences, Universidad de Chile, Santiago!

Congratulations to graduate student Zeph Fleetwood for receiving the 2023 Silas Palmer Fellowship by the Hoover Institution at Stanford University!

Zeph will spend two weeks working with the William P. Clark papers, the personal papers of the former Secretary of the Interior and National Security Advisor in the Reagan Administration.

Second-year Ph.D. student Ibrahim Anọ́ba has been awarded the 2023 Silas Palmer Fellowship by The Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

He will spend two weeks working with the George D. Jenkins papers, a robust collection focused on southwestern Nigeria during the first half of the 20th century.

Congratulations to Nina Farnia, Assistant Professor at Albany Law School, UCD Ph.D. 2022!

She received the Julien Mezey Dissertation Prize by the Law & Humanities Association for her dissertation, "Imperialism in the Making of U.S. Law."

Ph.D. candidate Joel Daniel Olea-Calixto has been announced as a 2023 Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Innovation Fellow!

His project focuses on how Mexican refugees-turned-technocrats, Indigenous mining laborers, and foreign mining companies shaped Mexico’s mining industry.

You can read more about his project here. 

Congrats Joel!

Congratulations to graduate student Charlotte Terry!

Terry was awarded the Graduate Research Fellowship in Mormon Studies at the Tanner Humanities Center at the University of Utah for the 2023-2024 academic year.

Congratulations to graduate student Charles Sills, who has been awarded a prestigious Center for Arabic Studies Abroad Fellowship to study Arabic in Morocco!

The CASA Program is a highly selective Arabic immersion program that offers students with an advanced level of Arabic full scholarships for a year of intensive study. As a 2023-24 CASA Fellow, Charles will study in Meknes, Morocco.

Interested in a class on conspiracy theories?

C-Span captured Professor Kathryn Olmsted's lecture on the "Red Scare" of the 1940's and 50's and how it evolved into a wide-ranging conspiracy theory.

Watch the lecture here.

Ph.D. graduate Habib Saçmalı has accepted a tenure-track assistant professorship in the History Department of Marmara University in Istanbul!

Congratulations Habib!

Congratulations to graduate student Samia Errazzouki, who has been offered a Mellon Fellowship of Scholars in the Humanities at Stanford University!

Out of more than 900 applicants, only four were selected. Samia will join the Stanford History Department for 2023 and 2024.

In honor of Black History Month, read Professor Diana Davis' article "Decolonizing Veterinary History?" about the first South African veterinarian, Dr. Jotello Soga. 

Davis highlights his important work in combatting rinderpest, an infectious viral disease of cattle.

Read the article here.