Recent Dissertations
2021
Dorst, Jesse
Bumfodder: Cheap Paper, Ephemeral Print, and the Unsettled Nation, 1651-1720
Advisor: JB Shank
Hampton, Melissa
Jaywant, Ketaki Umesh
Secularizing Caste: Mapping Nineteenth-Century Anti-caste Politics in Western India
Advisor: Ajay Skaria
Lummus, Wesley
One Nation, Two Languages: Latinization and Language Reform in Turkey and Azerbaijan, 1905-1938
Advisor: Gaincarlo Casale
Malauene, Denise
Quijada, Pedro
The Forgotten El Salvador: A Study of the Emergence and Downfall of the "Bright Spot" of Central America, 1948-1978
Advisor: Patrick McNamara
Slade, Virgil
Advisor: Helena Pohlandt-Mcormack
Snowden, Emma
Briding the Straight: The Shared History of Iberia and North Africa in Medieval Muslim and Christian Chronicles
Advisors: Michael Lower, Ruth Mazo Karras
Wilz, Patrick
"In Cold Type: The New Technological Sublime and the Reimagining of Print Journalism in the United States and Britain, 1960-1995”
Advisors: Thomas Wolfe, Patricia Lorcin
Zhu, Tianxiao
Secret Trails: Food and Trade in the Late Maoist China, 1960-1978
Advisor: Christopher Isset
2020
Contreras, Jazmine
"We were all in the resistance: Historical Memory of the Holocaust and Second World War in the Netherlands”
Advisors: Anna Clark, Mary Jo Maynes
Flynn, Christopher
“Unconquered Louis Rejoiced in Iron: Military History in East Francia under King Louis the German (c. 825-876)”
Advisors: Bernard Bachrach, Kathryn Reyerson
Jahnke-Wagner, Joanne
"Captive Economics: Social Reproduction, Commodification, and Settler Colonialism in the Northeast 1630-1763"
Advisor: Kristen Fischer
Li, Kan
"On the Road to a Modern City: New Transportation Technology and Urban Transformation of Tianjin, 1860-1937"
Advisors: Liping Wang, Ann Waltner
Little, John
“Vietnam Akíčita: Lakota and Dakota Military Tradition in the Twentieth Century”
Advisor: Jean O'Brien
Poletti, Bailey
Advisor: Kathryn Reyerson
Rene, Christopher
"In Search of a Confessional Identity: Dositheos Notaras, the Patriarch of Jerusalem (1669-1707), Confronts the Challenges of Modernity"
Advisor: Theofanis Stavrou
Sienna, Noam
“Making Jewish Books in North Africa, 1700-1900”
Advisor: Daniel Schroeter
Weber, Kent
“Chinese Exclusion and the U.S. Empire in Hawai’i and Cuba, 1874-1943”
Advisors: Erika Lee, David Chang
2019
Depenbusch, Brooke
“Down and Out in the USA: General Relief and the Politics of Precarity in the Shadow of the Welfare State, 1935-1964”
Advisors: Barbra Welke, Tracey Deutsch
Dillenburg, Elizabeth
“Constructing and Contesting “the Girlhood of Our Empire”: Girls’ Culture, Labor, and Mobility in Britain, South Africa, and New Zealand, c. 1830-1930”
Advisors: Anna Clark, Mary Jo Maynes
Jiang, Yuanxin
“More than just a Drink: Tea Consumption, Material Culture, and ‘Sensory Turn’ in Early Modern China (1550-1700)”
Advisor: Ann Waltner
Manke, John
“Granum Bonum: Grain Distribution and the Emergence of Popular Institutions in Medieval Genoa”
Advisor: Kathryn Reyerson
Thumbran, Janeke
“The ‘Coloured Question’ and the University of Pretoria: Separate Development, Trusteeship, and Self Reliance, 1933-2012”
Advisors: Helena Pohlandt-McCormick, Allen Isaacman
Vig, Paul
“Hunters and After Riders: A History of Hunting and the Making of Race in the Waterberg, 1840s-Present”
Advisors: Helena Pohlandt-McCormick, Allen Isaacman
2018
Arnett, Jessica
"Between Empires and Frontiers: Alaska Native Sovereignty and U.S. Settler Imperialism"
Advisors: Jean O'Brien, Barbara Welke
Haker, Joseph
"The Rock of the Republic: The Ten Commandments in American Life from World War II to the Culture Wars"
Advisors: Lary May, Elaine Tyler May
Hoyt, Andrew
"And They Called Them “Galleanisti”: The Rise of the Cronaca Sovversiva and the Formation of America’s Most Infamous Anarchist Faction (1895-1912)"
Advisor: Donna Gabaccia
James, Elliot
“Sithutha Isizwe ("We Carry the Nation"): Dispossession, Displacement, and the Making of the Shared Minibus Taxi in Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa, 1930-Present”
Advisors: Allen Isaacman, Helena Pohlandt-McCormick
Jin, Hui-Han
"Emotional Death: Tombs and Burial Practices in the Ming Dynasty, 1368-1644"
Advisor: Ann Waltner
Kim, Jee-Yeon
“Korean War Memories”
Advisors: Hiromi Mizuno, Yuichiro Onishi
King, Matthew
"The Norman Kingdom of Africa and the Medieval Mediterranean"
Advisor: Michael Lower
Nelson, Matt
"Relieved of These Little Chores: Agricultural Neighbor Labor, Family Labor, and Kinship in the United States 1790-1940"
Advisor: Steven Ruggles
Taparata, Evan
"No Asylum for Mankind: The Creation of Refugee Law and Policy in the United States, 1776-1951"
Advisors: Erika Lee, Donna Gabaccia
Wang, Luo
"The Gothic Saints and Their Mystical Songs: Performing Sanctity in the Thirteenth-Century Diocese of Liège"
Advisors: Ruth Karras, Bernard Bachrach
Williams, Blair
"Making Japan’s National Game: Baseball, Bushidō, and Discourses of National Identity, 1868-2008"
Advisor: Hiromi Mizuno
2017
Blackler, Adam
"Heathens, 'Hottentots', and Heimat: Colonial Encounters and German Identity in Southwest Africa, 1842-1915"
Advisors: Eric Weitz, Gary Cohen
Condit-Shrestha, Kelly
"Adoption and American Empire: Migration, Race-making, and the Child, 1845-1988"
Advisors: Erika Lee, Donna Gabaccia
Luepke, Laura
"Defining the Physician's Duty: Medical Professionalization in America and the Politics of Prostitution Reform Activism, the 1870s-1910s"
Advisors: Tracey Deutsch, Jennifer Gunn
Perez, Bernadette
"Before the Sun Rises: Contesting Power and Cultivating Nations in the Colorado Beet Fields"
Advisors: David Chang, Erika Lee
Qureshi, Basit
"Crusade, Crisis, and Statecraft in Latin Christendom: The Case of Fulk V of Anjou (1090-1143)"
Advisors: Michael Lower, Kathryn Reyerson
Weaver Olson, Nathan
"A Republic of Lost Peoples: Race, Status, and Community in the Eastern Andes of Charcas at the Turn of the Seventeenth Century"
Advisor: Sarah Chambers
Williams, Elizabeth
"Sexual Trusteeship: Constructing Race and Sexuality in Colonial Kenya, 1885-1963"
Advisors: Anna Clark, Patricia Lorcin
2016
Izzo, Jesse
"The Frankish Nobility and The Fall of Acre: Diplomacy, Society, and War in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, c.1240-1291"
Advisor: Michael Lower
Manovich, Ellen
"Is This a Real Neighborhood?: Universities, Urban Development, and Neighborhood Change in the Twentieth-Century United States"
Advisors: Steven Ruggles, Donna Gabaccia
Park, Sharon
"Constructing Americans’ Responsibility to Give: Shifting Debates about Foreign and Humanitarian Aid to Child Refugees, 1945–1989"
Advisor: Elaine Tyler May
Zimo, Ann
"Muslims in the Landscape: A Social Map of the Kingdom of Jerusalem in the Thirteenth Century"
Advisor: Michael Lower
2015
Bradley, Cameron
“Between Brothers: Brotherhood and Masculinity in the Later Middle Ages.”
Advisor: Ruth Mazo Karras
Bruce, Emily
“Reading Agency: The Making of Modern German Childhoods in the Age of Revolutions.”
Advisor: Mary Jo Maynes
Morton, David
"Age of Concrete: Housing and the Imagination in Mozambique's Capital, c. 1950 to Recent Times."
Advisors: Allen Isaacman, Helena Pohlandt-McCormick
Mummey, Kevin
"Women, Slavery, and Community on the Island of Mallorca, 1360-1390."
Advisors: Kathryn Reyerson; Ruth Mazo Karras
Phillips, Katrina
"We All Have a Part to Play": Salvage Tourism in American Indian Historical Pagentry."
Advisor: Jean O'Brien
Wisnoski, Alexander
"Contesting Husbands and Masters: Law, Society, and the Marital Household in Colonial Lima."
Advisor: Sarah Chambers