Historical Studies - Fall 2019 Newsletter

Erik Alexander (Civil War and 19th-Century US) was promoted to associate professor with tenure and was awarded the 2019 SIUE Teaching Distinction Award. He published a chapter on the portrayal of Reconstruction in film in Southern History on Screen ed. Bryan Jack (University of Kentucky, 2018) and is finishing a book manuscript on northern democrats during Reconstruction. Alexander co-directs the Department’s graduate program. His recent teaching highlights include taking a class on Abraham Lincoln to Springfield to visit the Lincoln museum. 

Nichol Allen (U.S. and African American History) teaches African American and U.S. History surveys. She is completing her PhD with a dissertation on 19th-century U.S. relations with Haiti. This summer she presented a paper titled “Cannibal Cousins: From the Fair to the Parlor,” which explores the American display of Haiti at the 1893 Chicago’s World’s Fair as serving to justify military intervention. 

Anthony Cheeseboro (Africa) was president of the Black Faculty and Staff Association until August 2018. He also led a drive to establish a NAACP student chapter on campus. The SIUE Chapter was recognized by the national board in February, and he is the chapter’s faculty advisor.

Laura Fowler (U.S. and Museum Studies) has directed the post-baccalaureate certificate program in museum studies since 2003. She recently published “Museums 2.0: Lessons for Illinois Museums for the Next 200 Years,” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, 111, no. 102 (Spring/Summer 2018).

Carole Frick (Early Modern Europe) has been chair of the department since 2010. She  continues her research into the material culture of early modern Europe and published two articles with Bloomsbury Press (2018, 2019), one on Renaissance hair and the other on Renaissance color. She has taken SIUE students to Italy almost every summer for 14 years. She and her students returned from this year’s trip in late June. 

Emeritus Professor Sam Grant has made travel a priority in retirement visiting friends in Istanbul, Morocco, and Spain. He continues teaching by facilitating classes at Washington University’s Life-Long Learning program in Middle East Literature, Architecture and Art. 

Tracy Hancock (Office Support Specialist) earned her bachelor’s degree in criminal justice in 2017. She is now working to complete an MA in the same field. Hancock has streamlined a host of departmental functions including class scheduling, contracts and textbook rental orders, and has served on the CAS’s Targeting Fuding Initiative Committee to initiate training programs for new software for staff across the College. 

Jessica C. Harris (African American History) was hired in 2011 to teach 20th century African American History. Currently, she serves in the Office of the Provost as interim assistant provost, a position she has held since January 2018. In this role, Dr. Harris develops and supports student success initiatives and promotes the advancement of inclusive excellence in academic affairs.

In addition to publishing Fight Like a Tiger (see “New Books” for details) and teaching American history surveys and special topics such as the history of the Vietnam War, Victoria “Tori” Harrison (U.S.) recently put materials together together for the Moving Vietnam Wall  at the VA Hospital in Marion, Ill.

Christienne Hinz (East Asia) continues to teach, and to design original game systems for her innovative gamified course Gaming World History: the First 50,000 Years. This course uses an amalgamation of original card games, table-top games, accounting games, building-block games and role-playing games to model the relationships between environment, political economy and the human experience from paleolithic times to the 16th century. Hinz has also given workshops on game design for university classrooms and assessment-informed game design.

Bryan Jack (African American History) edited and contributed to the volume Southern History on Screen: Race and Rights, 1976-2016 (University Press of Kentucky, 2018). See “New Books” for details. 

Tom Jordan (Latin America) was hired in 2000 to teach 19th- and 20th-century Latin American history. Currently, he serves in the Office of the Provost as the coordinator for policy, communication and issues of concern, a position he has held since November 2013. As the Coordinator, Jordan focuses on policy development and implementation, Federal and State compliance for academic affairs, student academic issues, and faculty concerns.

 In 2018, Jeff Manuel (20th-Century U.S. and Public History) received a Collaborative Research Fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) to fund research for a comparative history of ethanol fuel in the United States and Brazil. He published a chapter in Mining North America: An Environmental History since 1522, ed. John McNeill (University of California, 2017). In March 2017, Manuel appeared on NPR’s All Things Considered to discuss the 1918 Robert Prager lynching in Collinsville. 

Since the fall of 2017, Phil Mazero (Medieval Europe) has been teaching courses in European history and courses which touch on his areas of expertise including frontier zones, identity formation and Byzantine administrative history. He just completed his PhD dissertation in history at Saint Louis University titled “Venice on the Border: The Rise of the Republic on the Edge of the Byzantine World, 568-1126”. 

Rowena McClinton (Native American History and History Pedagogy) has two major projects close to completion: First Peoples and First Nations (Cognella Academic) and The John Howard Payne Papers, vols. 7-14 (University of Nebraska). She published a series of chapters on Native Americans in Social Movements in Modern Empires, eds. Kathryn Kish Sklar and Thomas Dublin (Alexander Street, 2017), an online curated collection of documents. McClinton is in her 17th year as a Newberry Library Scholar in Residence. 

Jennifer Miller (Modern Europe) published Turkish Guest Workers in Germany: Hidden Lives and Contested Borders, 1960s to 1980s (2018). See “New Books.” She also published the chapter, "Instructional Visions: German Visual Messages to the First Generation of Turkish Guest Workers," in Becoming TransGerman: Cultural Identity Beyond Geography (2019). In 2018, SIUC invited her to present her research and she was also a featured speaker at Brandeis University’s Center for German and European Studies. In early 2019, Miller was a keynote speaker at Carleton University’s Centre for European Studies’ “International Emerging Scholars’ Workshop,” where she presented on “Migration, Identity and Politics in Europe.” She is currently developing a text on modern European women and gender history with Bloomsbury Press. She is co-director of the department’s graduate program.

Gertrud Elisberg Moreno (U.S. and World History) teaches surveys in U.S., European and World History. She is part of SIUE-SIUC’s cooperative doctoral program in historical studies and is working on her dissertation. Her research interests are in European modernism, 19- and 20th-century American literature and culture, and transatlantic studies.

During the last two years, Robert “Buddy” Paulett (Colonial U.S.) has been awarded a series of fellowships (Omohundro Institute, King's College of London, the Royal Archives and the Society for Colonial Wars) for his project on British aesthetics of empire and governance of the North American colonies in the 1700s. He has conducted research in London and at George Washington’s Mount Vernon. He worked to improve cooperation and recruitment for the department’s co-op doctorate with Carbondale. 

Emeritus Professor Samuel Pearson lives in University City and continues to build on his experience with the Chinese exchange program at SIUE teaching English to older Chinese residents in St. Louis. He is also involved with the University’s emeriti group because of his conviction that SIUE is an enormous asset to this area and that he is indebted for the many ways in which it furthered his academic career. 

Since 2013, Eric W. Ruckh has served as director of the University Honors Program. He has been teaching courses on artificial intelligence and modern political theory. This spring he worked with Chuck Harper and the students of theater and dance on the production of Are U R?, an original play inspired by Karel Čapek’s classic 1920 robot apocalypse, RUR (Rossum’s Universal Robots). 

Jason Stacy (19th-Century U.S. and History Pedagogy) published “Walt Whitman’s Journalism” in Walt Whitman Quarterly Review (2017) and a chapter on Whitman’s journalism in  Walt Whitman in Context, eds. Joanna Levin and Edward Whitley (Cambridge University, 2018). His current project focuses on Edgar Lee Masters and the myth of small town America. With a team of graduate students, he continues to edit Whitman’s journalism for the Walt Whitman Archive.  

Steve Tamari (Middle East) published “Confounding Dichotomies: Elite and Popular, Spiritual and Secular, Pious and Joyous in the Travel Writing of ‘Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi,” in Early Modern Trends in Islamic Theology, eds. Lejla Demiri and Samuela Pagani (Mohr Siebeck, 2018). He is a board member of the committee on undergraduate Middle East studies of the Middle East Studies Association of North America and serves on the bargaining team of the faculty association. 

Allison Thomason (Ancient History) is the new chair of the department. She published “After ‘Profits’: Methodological and Historiographic Remarks on the Study of Women, Textiles, and Economy in the Ancient Near East” in Studying Gender in the Ancient Near East, eds. S. Svard and A. Garcia-Ventura (Pennsylvania State, 2018). She is currently co-editing an anthology, Handbook of the Senses in the Ancient Near East (Routledge). 

Kathleen Vongsathorn (History of Medicine and Africa) is the newest member of the faculty. See "Faculty Profile." 

Emeritus Professor James Weingartner donated a host of U.S. National Archives microfilm, mostly of captured German records, to the SIUE archives. He serves on the editorial board of the "War, Culture and Society" series of the Bloomsbury Press. He has written a biography of the late Michael Astour who taught in our department (1965-2004):  “Michael C. Astour: A Biographical Essay”.

by Emily Hess, graduate student

Help me welcome Dr. Kathleen Vongsathorn to the Department of Historical Studies! 

Vongsathorn’s research interests include the history of disease, Ugandan history, humanitarianism, and the role of women in healthcare.  She brings extensive international experience to our department as one who comes from an international family; has spent ten years in Europe studying, teaching and researching; and has lived and done the bulk of her research in Uganda. 

Vongsathorn’s interest in African history goes back to an undergraduate class on African life histories. Vongsathorn earned her Bachelor’s Degree in History from Carleton College and her Master and DPhil degrees from the University of Oxford. Her dissertation is titled, “‘Things that Matter’: Missionaries, Government, and Patients in the Shaping of Uganda’s Leprosy Settlements, 1927-1951.” 

Vongasothorn’s research and writing focus on Uganda’s medical history. She is especially interested in intersections between the past and present as they relate to health and medicine. Her publications include “Gnawing Pains, Festering Ulcers, and Nightmare Suffering: Selling Leprosy as a Humanitarian Cause in the British Empire, c. 1890-1960,” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 40, no. 5 (2012): 863-878. and "'A Real Home’: Children, Family, Mission, and the Negotiation of Life at the Kumi Children’s Leper Home in Colonial Uganda”, Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth, 8, no. 1 (2015): 55-74.

Like many of us, Vongsathorn’s main inspiration to become a teacher came from college professors who stretched her mind and supported her and her interests. As a professor, she is most inspired by interactions with students, seeing them get excited about the historical materials, and helping them change their minds, especially when it comes to Africa which is surrounded by misconceptions. 

As SIUE, she has taught two upper-level courses in her areas of expertise, “From Leprosy to Ebola: Health in African History” and “Aid to Africa: Humanitarianism and Development in African History.” She also teaches “Modern World History since 1500” and “Historical Methods.” This fall she will teach a freshman seminar titled “Fear and Disease,” an upper-level course titled “Science and Empire” and a graduate course titled “Race and Medicine.” 

Vongsathorn will spend much of this summer conducting research in Uganda and in England on the two projects. The first focuses on the history of medical humanitarianism, from the colonial period to the present, using the case study of leprosy in Uganda. The second is an exploration of the role of women in the way that knowledge and practices around health have changed over the twentieth century in Uganda. She is thankful to  SIUE’s Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities program for allowing her to engage undergraduates in her research during the spring 2019 term. 

In what spare time she has left, Vongsathorn enjoys baking, cooking Thai food, reading, games, putting puzzles together, and caring for her cat named Grace.

Faculty in the Department are producing more research and writing than we can adequately account for in this newsletter. To give you a taste of the range of interests represented by our faculty, here are summaries of three books published in the last year. 

In Southern History on Screen: Race and Rights, 1976–2016, editor Bryan Jack (African American History) brings together essays from an international roster of scholars to provide new critical perspectives on Hollywood’s relationships with  historical films, Southern history, identity, and the portrayal of Jim Crow–era segregation. This collection analyzes films through the lens of religion, politics, race, sex, and class, building a comprehensive look at the South as seen on screen. By illuminating depictions of the southern belle in Gone with the Wind, the religious rhetoric of southern white Christians and the progressive identity of the “white heroes” in A Time to Kill (1996) and Mississippi Burning (1988), as well as many other archetypes found across time,  this book explores the intersection between film, historical memory, and southern identity.

In Turkish Guest Workers in Germany, Jennifer Miller tells the post-war story of Turkish "guest workers," whom West German employers recruited to fill their depleted ranks. Miller’s unique approach starts in the country of departure rather than the country of arrival and is heavily informed by Turkish-language sources and perspectives. Miller argues that the guest worker program, far from creating a parallel society, involved constant interaction between foreign nationals and Germans. These categories were as fluid as the Cold War borders they crossed. Miller’s extensive use of archival research in Germany, Turkey, and the Netherlands examines the recruitment of workers, their travel, initial housing and work engagements, social lives, and involvement in labour and religious movements. She reveals how, contrary to popular belief, the West German government attempted to maintain a humane, foreign labour system and the workers themselves made crucial, often defiant, decisions. Turkish Guest Workers in Germany identifies the Turkish guest  worker program as a postwar phenomenon that has much to tell us about the development of Muslim minorities in Europe and Turkey’s ever-evolving relationship with the European Union.

In Fight Like a Tiger: Conway Barbour and the Challenges of the Black Middle Class in Nineteenth-Century America, Victoria L. Harrison (U.S. History) argues that the idea of a black middle class traces its origins to the free black population of the mid-nineteenth century and develops alongside the idea of a white middle class. Although slavery and racism meant that the definition of middle class was not identical for white people and free people of color, they shared similar desires for advancement. Born a slave in western Virginia about 1815, Barbour was a free man by the late 1840s. His adventurous life took him through Lexington and Louisville, Ky.; Cleveland, Ohio; Alton, Il.; and Little Rock and Lake Village, Ark. In search of upward mobility, he worked as a steamboat steward, tried his hand at several commercial ventures, and entered politics. He sought, but was denied, a Civil War military appointment that would have provided financial stability. Blessed with intelligence, competence and energy, Barbour was quick to identify opportunities as they appeared in personal relationships—he was simultaneously married to two women—business and politics. Despite an unconventional life, Barbour found in each place he lived that he was one of many free black people who fought to better themselves alongside their white countrymen. Harrison’s argument about black class formation reframes the customary narrative of downtrodden free African Americans in the mid-nineteenth century and engages current discussions of black inclusion, the concept of “otherness,” and the breaking down of societal barriers. Demonstrating that careful research can reveal the stories of people who have been invisible to history, Fight Like a Tiger complicates our understanding of the intersection of race and class in the Civil War era.

How connected can the present be to the past? How can the department connect professional historians with the histories of their students? And, then, with the educational mission of SIUE as a whole?  How can the department and the University connect to the county and the country? To area schools, towns and villages, local museums, businesses and researchers everywhere through databases and research guides? How about the connections between all these institutions today with their multi-layered pasts?

All these connections (and more) over time and space and between individuals and institutions have been made possible through digital technologies and the drive of professors and students in the Department of Historical Studies and members of the larger SIUE and Madison County communities.

The vehicle for this network of connections is “Madison Historical:The Online Encyclopedia and Digital Archive of Madison County.”

The brainchild of Madison County Regional Superintendent of Schools Robert Daiber, the Department of Historical Studies launched Madison Historical in August 2016. The mission of the project is to inform the community about the history and culture of Madison County, Ill., provide an authoritative and accessible resource for students, genealogists, scholars and other persons interested in the County, and to create a framework for the ongoing documentation of Madison County history by providing a user-friendly digital collection of historically significant documents and oral histories. The site has already published encyclopedia entries, oral histories and an exciting collection of artifacts. 

Historical studies faculty Jason Stacy, Jeff Manuel and Professor Emeritus Steve Hansen edit the encyclopedia and Ben Ostermeier, BS archive and history '17, is the project’s technical director. A dedicated core of graduate students have done much of the work of collecting, scanning and archiving a host of materials and oral histories. To date, SIUE professors and graduate students have produced almost 100 encyclopedia articles, archived 1,300 artifacts, and 100 oral histories. The site has generated 13,000 visitors since 2016.

Madison Historical thrives as part of a deep network connecting the department, University and a host of institutions throughout the county. Grants have come from Madison County’s County Regional Office of Education, SIUE’s Meridian Society, SIUE’s Emeritus Faculty Association, and Illinois Humanities.

Professors and graduate students reached out in person to partner with local institutions to facilitate this hub of historical references. Partner institutions range from museums like the East Alton History Museum and the Wood River Refinery Museum, to historical societies like the Lincoln Place Heritage Association, area public library systems, and county agencies like the Madison County Recorder’s Office. There are many more.

Here are a few developments that illustrate why so many are excited about the prospects of Madison Historical to connect teachers, students and community members across time and space. Granite City High School’s newspaper, Granite High World (1935-1956) has been found,digitized and made publicly available. Approximately 100 years of Granite City High School yearbooks are also available online through the Six Mile Regional Library District. The family of Dick Howard Mudge, Sr., once a prominent attorney and member of the local Democratic Party, opened their family papers to Madison Historical. In the process of scanning and digitizing the letters at SIUE’s Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Informatics Scholarship (IRIS), SIUE graduate student Kelli West came across letters between Franklin D. Roosevelt and Mudge. “It’s incredibly important to uncover these diamonds that otherwise may not be found," West said. "The letters between FDR and D. H. Mudge Sr. fit Madison County in the national historical narrative.”

In addition to the collection and composition of historical information, Madison Historical serves the more strictly pedagogical missions of SIUE. Chancellor Randy Pembrook notes that the project “aligns directly with SIUE’s commitment to high impact community engagement practices (HICEPs).” In 2018, graduate students associated with Madison Historical engaged teachers and students at Bethalto High School and Collinsville Middle School in the joys of local history.

Since November 2018, Madison Historical extended its national reach with inclusion in the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA), a massive national online archive of more than 33 million photographs, documents, videos and audio recordings from hundreds of universities, libraries and archives throughout the United States. Visitors to the DPLA searching for materials related to, for example, the history of Standard Oil’s refineries, will see materials from Madison County alongside materials from institutions like the national archives and the Smithsonian. Lovejoy Library’s special collections are also available on DPLA.

How connected can we be? The possibilities are infinite. 

Madison History invites members of the community to:

• Write an encyclopedia article. If you are an expert on some aspect of local history, please share your passion with readers by writing an encyclopedia article. We welcome articles on all aspects of Madison County history, including significant people, buildings or events. Articles are typically 500-1500 words and are vetted by our editorial board prior to publication online. To submit an article or ask about a topic, please email madisonhistorical1812@gmail.com.
• Share digital copies of historical materials like old photographs or letters. We are building a digital archive of the county’s historical photographs and documents. We invite you to share digital copies of your old photographs and documents via our digital archive. We will scan the materials and upload them to our website. You keep the originals and get a digital copy for free! To share materials or discuss what you have, please email madisonhistorical1812@gmail.com.
• Share memories with an oral history interview. Madison Historical shares personal histories of the County through oral history interviews. If you know someone who would be a good candidate for an interview, please let us know. Better yet, if you conduct the interview yourself we can preserve and share it in our digital archive. To discuss the procedure for conducting oral history interviews, please email us at madisonhistorical1812@gmail.com.

PhD Student

Shannan Mason: I am from the far away land of O’Fallon, Ill. In 2012 I graduated with my Bachelor of Sciences in history and obtained my master’s degree in historical studies and a museum studies certification from SIUE in 2014. I began coursework for a PhD in history as part of the co-operative program with SIUC in fall 2018. My current areas of focus are 19th-century conceptions of conspicuous consumption through the lens of social and environmental history. I am scheduled to take my comprehensive exams in world history, early American, and late American history in the spring of 2020. I currently teach U.S. history and western civ at SIUE and Lincoln Land Community College in Springfield, Ill.

MA Students

Patrick Ayres: I am from Edwardsville and received my bachelor’s in historical education from SIUE in 2016. I am finishing my master’s in history. My thesis, “Embattled Conservatism: Hamilton Gamble and Conservatism in the Civil War Era,” revolves around using the career of Hamilton Gamble to understand Civil War era conservatism and western identity in Missouri. Next semester, I am starting the co-operative PhD program with SIUC.

Kendyl Murfin: I am from Edwardsville and received my bachelor’s in political science and master’s in public administration from SIUE. My research focuses on the 1849 cholera epidemic in St. Louis and the ways in which it shaped the city and its people. I am graduating in May and will begin my PhD in American studies at Saint Louis University in the fall. I also received a graduate internship at St. Louis Art Museum for this summer. (This internship is rare for a non-museum studies or art history students.) I will start the internship on June 10 to help with an exhibit they are putting on for the Missouri Bicentennial!

Brendon Floyd: I am from Philadelphia, and I earned both my Bachelor of Arts in history and Master’s of Education at Johnson State College in Johnson, Vt. Since coming to SIUE to earn my master’s degree in historical studies and museum certification, my general focus of study has been the early American republic with an emphasis on trans-Atlantic radicalism, especially the activities of the United Irishmen in the United States and the social and political identity of Irish-Americans. The title of my master’s thesis is “Exiled Irish-America: Irish Identity in the Early American Republic.” During my time at SIUE, I have been a teaching assistant and graduate research assistant for Madison Historical. Both have contributed enormously to my ability to take my next academic step, earning my PhD. Next semester I will be attending the University of Missouri to study under Dr. Jay Sexton. I have also been awarded the Haskell Monroe Graduate Fellowship in Civil War era history, a two-year fellowship for a digital humanities project that will summarize, classify and publish Professor Monroe’s extensive bibliography of first-hand accounts of life in the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865. I am genuinely grateful for my time at SIUE, and I would not be on this track in life had it not been for all the support and mentorship both the professors and faculty have given me. 

Olabode Makanju Shadare: I am from Nigeria, and I have lived most of my life in the city of Lagos. I got my first degree in history and international relations from Osun State University, Nigeria, and I also have a master’s degree in international relations and European-Asian studies from Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia. My research interest is in African history, and my focus is on understanding the changing role of Yoruba women in post-independence Nigeria. I intend to complete my program and graduate in May 2020.

Tyler Swanner: I am from St. Louis and completed my Bachelor's of Science in education with an emphasis in history (social studies) at Missouri State University located in Springfield, Mo. Currently I am in the cultural heritage and resource management MA program and the museum studies program at SIUE. My research primarily focuses on the use of cultural heritage sites, such as Cahokia Mounds, in the K-12 education system. I am currently a teaching assistant in the historical studies department, teaching HIST 112B. I also am a graduate assistant in the College of Arts and Sciences Dean's Office. 

Emily Hess: I am from Greenville, Ill., and completed my Bachelor’s of Arts in history at Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais, Ill. I am currently in the historical studies MA program. My research primarily focuses on the intersection of class and gender within the spaces of movie theaters in the midwest from 1900-1930.

John W. Marshall, BS '93, MA'03, a social studies teacher at East Alton-Wood River High School, won his second Teacher of the Year Award. The first time was in 1999.

Amber Myers Wells, BS '00, received her MA in Egyptology at UCLA shortly after graduating from SIUE. She has worked for the Getty Museum and other groups in Los Angeles and is currently self-employed conducting tours of exhibits related to ancient art and archaeology in local museums. She is married to Eric Wells, has two children, and resides in LA. 

Bob Nolte, BS '07, spent nine years teaching English in three parts of China: Jintan and Danyang cities in Jiangsu Province, Guangdong Peizheng College in Guangzhou, and at Beijing 21st Century International High School. He also managed to travel through east and southeast Asia and Europe. Now he is completing a second degree in English at SIUE. 

Colleen Strubberg, BS '07, settled in Seattle and works in a dental practice while raising two children, Lincoln (12) and Claire (16), with her husband. 

Sara Marie Ayran, BS '08, lives in Izmir, Turkey. Since graduating, Sara Marie has worked as a teacher in China, the Czech Republic and Turkey where she has lived since 2014. She has biked throughout the Balkans and southeast Asia and received advanced yoga certification in India. 

Mark Rosenkoetter, BS '08, works in a prison. He uses many of the research, writing and public speaking skills he gained which studying history education at SIUE. He is the current vice president of an AFSCME local and serves on its bargaining committee which is negotiating a contract on behalf of 40,000 state employees. 

Adam Hill, MA '08, is a PhD candidate in modern European history at the University of Connecticut and expects to defend his dissertation (on decolonization and British Egyptology) later this year. He just accepted a position as assistant professor of history and chair of the social sciences department at Sterling College in Kansas. From 2015 to 2017 he was an assistant professor at Concordia College in New York, and from 2017 to 2019 he taught history at Saint Cloud Christian School in Minnesota.

Zachary Riebeling, BA '09, MA '12, just defended his dissertation "Wounds of the Past: Trauma and German Historical Thought after 1945" at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Riebeling examines a cohort of thinkers he terms "postprogressive" who engaged in fundamental historical criticism as a response to the individual and collective traumas of the  World War II and its attending atrocities. 

Christina Mathena Carlson, MA '11, works at the St. Louis Science Center on projects related to education and community and professional outreach, including “Science Beyond the Boundaries.”

Eden Justus Crothers, BS '15, is pursuing a degree in library science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She is also editor of a small newspaper.  

Nasir Almasri, BS '15, earned an MA in International Relations from the University of Chicago in 2017. He is now at work on a PhD at MIT in Political Science. His work focuses on the legacies of colonialism and state building in the Middle East. 

Levi Molenhour, BS '15, MS education '17, teaches 8th grade American history at St. Louis College Prep. Because of the research focus of SIUE’s historical studies program, he is “able to ground my American History course in the development of inquiry skills which translate outside of the classroom into critical thinking skills necessary for success in the 21st century.” 

Myles Cameron, MA '15, has taught courses on world history, western civilization and ancient history in local community colleges in the Edwardsville area and in Virginia, where he currently resides. He is enjoying life in Virginia with his wife and two boys and continues to develop his interests in ancient history.

Greg Viessman, MA '16, is a PhD candidate in Egyptology at the University of Memphis. He has excavated at the pyramids of Giza in Egypt with the pre-eminent archaeologist Mark Lehner. 

Michelle Miller, BS '17, is finishing her master’s degree in library science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and is pursuing jobs working in libraries and archives around the state.

Brian Bradshaw, BS '18, had his 401 paper published in the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society. Brian argues that the mental trauma experienced by Civil War veterans was equivalent to the modern condition of PTSD, even though that terminology did not exist then. He uncovered stories of soldiers in Madison County who had been diagnosed as insane and institutionalized after the war. 

Mike Limmer, BS '18, has been accepted to the Mizzou history MA program with full tuition remission and a generous stipend, where he will work with Professor Linda Reeder on modern Italian migration and gender history. 

Rhiannon Amato, BS '18, is a PhD candidate in American history at Temple University in Philadelphia.

Please share your news with us for upcoming issues of the newsletter. Send a 50-word update to Steve Tamari at stamari@siue.edu.

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If you have information to share, please contact:

Steve Tamari, editor
stamari@siue.edu
618-650-3967
Dept. of Historcial Studies
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
Peck Hall 1212
Box 1454
Edwardsville, IL 62026-1454