Members Making News: 2018 Archive

  • New York Times Publishes Op-Ed by AHA Member

    Dec 07, 2018 - 

    On December 1, Ana Minian, AHA member and professor of history at Stanford University, wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times discussing America's current detention policies and charting how the federal government's position has changed throughout history.

  • Former AHA President Receives Prestigious Faculty Award

    Dec 07, 2018 - 

    On November 26, William Roger Louis, former AHA president and Kerr Chair in English History and Culture, Distinguished Teaching Professor, and co-director of the British Studies Program at the University of Texas at Austin, was conferred the University of Texas at Austin Civitatis Award in recognition of outstanding faculty citizenship. The award, bequeathed by university President Gregory Fenves, is the highest award a faculty member can receive at UT. It recognizes dedicated and meritorious service to the university above and beyond the regular expectations of teaching, research, and service.

  • AHA Member Weighs in on Confederate Monuments Controversy

    Dec 04, 2018 - 

    On November 30, James Leloudis, AHA member and professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, published an article in the News & Observer on the future of Silent Sam and the ongoing debate surrounding Confederate monuments.  In the article, Leloudis offered context for the discussion and drew on the AHA's Statement on Confederate Monuments, published in August 2017.

  • AHA Member Receives Emmett Leahy Award

    Nov 15, 2018 - 

    On November 9, Trudy H. Peterson, AHA member, former member and vice president of the AHA Professional Division, and former acting archivist of the United States, was honored with the 2018 Emmett Leahy Award for Excellence in Records & Information Management. The award recognizes an individual whose contributions and outstanding accomplishments have a major impact on the records and information management profession.

  • Karin Wulf to Represent AHA at 2019 William & Mary Presidential Inauguration

    Nov 14, 2018 - 

    Karin Wulf, AHA member and executive director of the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, will represent the Association at the official inauguration of Katherine Rowe as the 28th president of the College of William & Mary on February 8, 2019.

  • AHA Member Urges Action to Help First-Generation Students

    Oct 31, 2018 - 

    On October 21, Marcia Chatelain, AHA member and associate professor of history and African American studies at Georgetown University, published an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education about the difficulties faced by first-generation students. The AHA hopes to help evaluate and revise introductory courses for first-generation students through History Gateways.

  • Institute of Advanced Jesuit Studies Recognizes Paul F. Grendler

    Oct 09, 2018 - 

    On October 2, 2018, the Institute of Advanced Jesuit Studies of Boston College awarded to Professor Paul F. Grendler, Professor of History emeritus, University of Toronto, the George E. Ganss, S. J., Award for "excellence in scholarly contributions to the field of Jesuit Studies." He also delivered the Feore Family Lecture on Jesuit Studies.

  • Allan J. Lichtman Published in USA Today

    Oct 02, 2018 - 

    On September 26, Allan J. Lichtman, Distinguished Professor of History at American University, published an op-ed in USA Today, based on his new book, The Embattled Vote in America. "The Founders unwisely gave states control of the vote," he wrote. The problem today "is not fraudulent voting but the suppression of voting" through "stringent voter photo ID laws, draconian purges of registration rolls, the disenfranchisement of former felons and restrictions on the opportunity to register."

  • Ruth Ben-Ghiat Will Be Visiting Scholar at Penn's Annenberg's School Spring 2019

    Sep 12, 2018 - 

    Ruth Ben-Ghiat will be a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Media at Risk, part of the Annenberg School for Communications at the University of Pennsylvania. Her last book, Italian Fascism's Empire Cinema, is a study of Fascist film propaganda. She is currently writing about threats to press freedoms in authoritarian regimes, and in President Trump's America.

  • AHA Members Appointed to State Department Historical Advisory Committee

    Aug 31, 2018 - 

    Earlier this week, the State Department appointed three AHA members to its Historical Advisory Committee. The newly appointed members are David Engerman (Brandeis Univ.), Adriane Lentz-Smith (Duke Univ.), and Julia Irwin (Univ. of South Florida). As members of the committee, they will be responsible for advising the Office of the Historian at the State Department. 

  • ACLS Awards over $940,000 to African Humanities Scholars

    Aug 15, 2018 - 

    The ACLS has announced the 2018 class of scholars for its African Humanities Program, now in its 10th year. Among the recipients are five historians, each of whom will be offered a two- to four-month-long residency at one of seven AHP residential centers on the continent, while they pursue their research. "Fellows taking up residencies will benefit from interaction with new academic communities and with library and other research resources at residential sites," noted Andrzej Tymowski, director of ACLS International Programs. 

  • AHA Members among Recent NEH Grant Recipients

    Aug 09, 2018 - 

    The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) announced August 8 that it will award over $43 million in grants for humanities projects across the country. Among those whose projects were selected were a number of historians, including 18 AHA members. According to the National History Alliance's statement concerning the news, "the NEH's investments generate public-private partnerships, cutting-edge research, promote teaching, and provide lifelong learning opportunities." See the full announcement and list of awardees on the NEH website.

  • Member Op-Ed on the Importance of the 14th Amendment

    Jul 20, 2018 - 

    Martha Jones, professor of presidential history at Johns Hopkins University and AHA member, published an op-ed in the Washington Post concerning the historical context of the 14th Amendment in the wake of President Trump's comments on birthright citizenship. "Birthright has been affirmed, again and again, ensuring that no matter how racist the regime, the Constitution grants citizenship to all people born in the United States," Jones writes in her piece, specifically pointing to cases like U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark that cited the 14th Amendment in their defense of citizenship by birth. "The rising calls to repeal birthright citizenship demand that we equip ourselves for the debate that is on the near horizon."

  • AHA Member Writes Op-Ed Concerning State of Medieval Studies

    Jul 17, 2018 - 

    Matthew Gabriele, AHA member and professor of medieval history at Virginia Tech, penned an op-ed in Forbes urging historians to be aware of the role they play in the political appropriation of traditional medieval symbols and iconography. "Marginalizing the voices of scholars asking questions about the state of the field, about what we study and how we study it, is not only ignoring the history of Medieval Studies but further distancing us from the past we're all so interested in," Gabriele concludes. 

  • ACLS Announces Inaugural Class of Project Development Grants

    Jun 28, 2018 - 

    The American Council of Learned Societies announced the inaugural recipients of the ACLS Project Development Grants. The $5,000 seed grants are intended to support humanities faculty at teaching-intensive institutions. Among the 15 recipients are six historians. Visit the ACLS website to see the full list of recipients. 

  • Former AHA Council Member Passes Away

    Jun 27, 2018 - 

    Willie Lee Rose, former AHA Council member and professor emerita at Johns Hopkins University, passed away on June 20 at the age of 91. Among her many accomplishments, Rose served as the head of the AHA committee that wrote the influential 1970 Rose Report, a gender discrimination report that outlined the challenges women faced as history faculty. Read her obituary on the Johns Hopkins website.

  • AHR Article Awarded Berks Prize

    Jun 13, 2018 - 

    Congratulations to Vanessa Ogle (Univ. of California, Berkeley) for receiving a 2017 article prize from the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians. Published in the December 2017 issue of the American Historical Review, Ogle's article, "Archipelago Capitalism: Tax Havens, Offshore Money, and the State, 1950s-1970s," was recognized as one of the best articles in a field of history other than the history of women, gender, and/or sexuality. 

  • AHA Members Included in 2018 Class of ACLS Public Fellows

    Jun 07, 2018 - 

    The ACLS announced the eighth annual cohort of Mellon/ACLS Public Fellows. Among the program's 24 fellows are three AHA members. Each fellow will be placed in a two-year, full-time position with a nonprofit organization or government agency working in the fields of policy, civil rights, arts, and the media. To see the full news post, please visit the ACLS website.

  • AHA Mourns Passing of Ira Berlin

    Jun 06, 2018 - 

    The AHA mourns the passing of historian Ira Berlin. Ira received the Association's Award for Scholarly Distinction in 2015, served on the Research Division from 1987-1990, and testified to Congress under difficult circumstances on our behalf in support of federal funding for the National Historical Records and Publications Commission. His extraordinary generosity and kindness to AHA staff members over a period that spans more than three decades offers a model of mentorship, professional responsibility, collegiality.  

  • AHA Institutional Members Awarded AAC&U Grants for History Departments

    May 25, 2018 - 

    On May 21, the Association of American Colleges and Universities announced it will be awarding funding to 24 history departments to "advance civic learning and social responsibility as expected dimensions within students' majors." Among the institutions listed are the State University of New York, College at Geneseo and the University of Central Florida, both AHA institutional members. To see the full list of recipients, visit the AAC&U's website. 

  • AHA Teaching Division VP Publishes Op-Ed on #MeToo in Academia

    May 22, 2018 - 

    Elizabeth Lehfeldt, vice president of the AHA's Teaching Division, published an op-ed for Inside Higher Ed discussing how the #MeToo movement has affected higher education and what steps are needed to improve campus working environments. Read the full article online.

  • ACLS to Provide Funding for Historical Research in China

    May 22, 2018 - 

    The American Council of Learned Societies announced the 2018 class of grantees for its Programs in China Studies. Among the list of 33 scholars who will receive funding are thirteen historians and four AHA members. With aid from The Henry Luce Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange, the ACLS is providing over $720,000 to fund scholarly research in China. 

  • AHA Members Awarded 2018 Mellon/ACLS Fellowships

    May 17, 2018 - 

    On April 25, the American Council of Learned Societies announced the 2018 Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellows. Among the 67 scholars awarded were 13 AHA members. Each fellowship provides a $30,000 stipend and up to $8,000 in research funds and university fees to graduate students in their final year of dissertation writing. To see the full list of fellows, visit the ACLS website. 

  • Schmitt Grant Awardee Writes Op-Ed on Monument to Russian Tsar in Crimea

    May 17, 2018 - 

    Ala Creciun Graff, AHA member and recipient of one of the Association's 2018 Bernadotte Schmitt Grants, wrote an op-ed for the Baltimore Sun concerning the symbolism of the newly unveiled statue of Russian Tsar Alexander III in Crimea. Graff sees this statue as evidence of Moscow's desire "to signal historical continuities with the peninsula" and Putin's larger goal "to re-assert Russia on the global stage."

  • Historians Awarded 2018-19 Berlin Prize

    May 17, 2018 - 

    On April 25, the American Academy in Berlin awarded the Berlin Prize to four historians, including three AHA members: Jennifer Allen (Yale Univ.), Peter Holquist (Univ. of Pennsylvania), and Carina Johnson (Pitzer Coll.). Each prize grants awardees a semester-long fellowship in Berlin. To see the full press briefing, visit the academy's website. 

  • AHA President-elect Awarded 2018 Heineken Prize from Royal Netherlands Academy

    Apr 26, 2018 - 

    AHA president-elect John McNeill (Georgetown Univ.) recently received the 2018 Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for History for his work in "integrating two recent branches of the study of history: global history and environmental history." Each Heineken Prize is worth $200,000 and will be presented on Thursday, September 27, 2018, in Amsterdam. 

  • Historians Included in List of 2018 Carnegie Fellows

    Apr 26, 2018 - 

    The Carnegie Corporation of New York today announced the 2019 class of Andrew Carnegie Fellows. Among the 31 recipients are 6 historians: Lily Geismer (Claremont McKenna Coll.); Grace Hale (Univ. of Virginia); Elizabeth Hinton (Harvard Univ.); Margaret Jacobs (Univ. of Nebraska, Lincoln); Erika Lee (Univ. of Minnesota, Twin Cities); and Talitha LeFlouria (Univ. of Virginia). Each fellow will receive up to $200,000 in funding.

  • AHA Members Inducted in 2018 Class of American Academy of Arts and Sciences

    Apr 24, 2018 - 

    On April 18, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences announced its Class of 2018 members. Among the list of inductees are AHA members Joe Miller (Univ. of Virginia and AHA president in 1998), David Cannadine (Princeton Univ.), Deborah Cohen (Northwestern Univ.), Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham (Harvard Univ.), and Ann Twinam (Univ. of Texas, Austin). They join 208 other "exceptional scholars, leaders, artists, and innovators" honored in 2018, including Barack Obama, Tom Hanks, and Sonia Sotomayor. View the complete list on the academy's website.

  • National Endowment for the Humanities Announces April 2018 Grant Recipients

    Apr 23, 2018 - 

    The National Endowment for the Humanities announced grant awards recipients for the month of April, which includes 25 members of the American Historical Association. In total, the NEH awarded $18.6 million across nearly 200 humanities projects nationwide in this most recent series of awards. 

  • Emily Rose Wins the Albert C. Outler Prize of the American Society of Church History

    Apr 17, 2018 - 

    The Albert C. Outler Prize honors the best ecumenical church history monograph, biography, critical edition or bibliography published in the two previous calendar years. The 2016 Albert C. Outler Prize is awarded to Emily Rose, visiting fellow in the Department of History at Harvard University, for her book The Murder of William of Norwich: The Origins of the Blood Libel in Medieval Europe (Oxford Univ. Press, 2015).

  • Commenting on the Great American Road Trip

    Apr 17, 2018 - 

    Drawing upon his expertise in the history national parks and early American motor travel, last summer Peter Blodgett served as one of the commentators in episode seven of the "out-LAND-ish" podcast sponsored by the United States Forest Service and the Salmon Valley Stewardship. As part of an effort to increase public awareness of and appreciation for the nation's public lands, the podcast looks at many different aspects of those spaces held in trust for the American populace.

  • Martha Hodes Receives Guggenheim and Cullman Center Fellowships

    Apr 17, 2018 - 

    Martha Hodes, professor of history at New York University, has been awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship and a fellowship at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. She will be writing a book, under contract with HarperCollins, exploring history and memory through a 1970 airplane hijacking, in which she was a 12-year-old passenger held hostage in the Jordan desert for a week.

  • ACLS Awards 2018 Fellowships to AHA Members

    Apr 12, 2018 - 

    The American Council of Learned Societies announced its list of fellows for 2018. Out of the 78 awards granted, 16 were to AHA members. The awards, ranging from $40,000 to $70,000, will support scholars for six to twelve months of full-time research and writing. For the full list of fellows, visit the ACLS website.

  • AHA Member Wins Toynbee Book Prize

    Apr 02, 2018 - 

    Lauren Benton, AHA life member and professor of history and law at Vanderbilt University, was recently awarded the Toynbee Prize for 2019. The prize is awarded biennially for contributions in the field of global history. Benton's work focuses on law in European empires, the history of international law, and Atlantic world history. Benton will accept the prize and deliver the Toynbee Prize Lecture during the AHA annual meeting in Chicago in January 2019. 

  • AHA Members Receive SHFG Awards

    Mar 23, 2018 - 

    AHA members Stephen Randolph (US Dept. of State) and Robert Lee (Harvard Soc. of Fellows) were recently honored at the Society for Historians in the Federal Government's 2018 Awards Ceremony. Randolph received the Roger Trask Award for his career at the Department of State, the National Defense University, and the Air Force. Lee received the James Madison Award for his article "Accounting for Conquest: The Price of the Louisiana Purchase of Indian Country."

  • Historians Win ACLS Frederick Burkhardt Residential Fellowships

    Mar 05, 2018 - 

    Twelve historians are among the scholars awarded the Frederick Burkhardt Residential Fellowships for Recently Tenured Scholars. This program, supported by the American Council of Learned Societies and the Mellon Foundation, provides $95,000 for "long-term, unusually ambitious projects" and allows winners to take residence in institutions that can support their interdisciplinary objectives. Learn more about the project online.

  • Historians Awarded Whiting Public Engagement Fellowships

    Mar 02, 2018 - 

    Historians Molly Todd (Montana State Univ.) and Denise Meringolo (Univ. of Maryland Baltimore County) were each awarded a $50,000 fellowship from the Whiting Foundation to support public-facing humanities projects. Learn more about the projects and the other awardees online.

  • ACLS Announces Recipients of 2018 Collaborative Research Fellowships

    Feb 22, 2018 - 

    The American Council of Learned Societies recently announced the recipients of its 2018 Collaborative Research Fellowships.  Several historians, including many AHA members, are among the eight teams of scholars who will receive funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support co-authored projects. According to ACLS director of fellowship programs Matthew Goldfeder, the program promotes scholars who can “ask big questions” and work across disciplinary lines. Read more about the program and the 2018 awarded projects online.

  • AHA Member Receives Anneliese Maier Research Award

    Jan 31, 2018 - 

    Alan Mikhail, AHA member and professor of Ottoman history at Yale University, was one of this year's eight recipients of the Anneliese Maier Research Award, which is granted by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation to outstanding humanities scholars and social scientists nominated by collaborative partners at German universities and research institutions.  Each award is valued at €250,000. To see the Humboldt Foundation's full press briefing, visit the website. 

  • AHA Member Passes Away at 107

    Jan 23, 2018 - 

    John Douglas Forbes, founding professor in the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business and AHA member since 1943, passed away last Friday at age 107. He was the AHA's oldest member. Before his tenure at Darden, Forbes served as a curator for paintings at the San Francisco World's Fair (1938-40) and taught history at Wabash College, Bennington College, and several other liberal arts schools. To read the full In Memoriam, please visit the University of Virginia's website. 

  • AHA Members Receive over $1 Million in NEH Funding

    Jan 18, 2018 - 

    In December, the National Endowment for the Humanities granted over $12.75 million in funding to support more than 250 humanities projects. Twenty-five AHA members were among the recipients, and their grants total about $1.2 million. Find the full list of NEH grant recipients online.

  • Former AHA Tuning Chair to Keynote K-16 Conference

    The Wichita Falls Museum of Art at MSU and the History Department of Midwestern State University are holding a conference in Wichita Falls, Texas, focusing on pedagogical strategies for K-16 educators. The keynote speakers are Anne F. Hyde, professor of history at the University of Oklahoma and former chair of the AHA's Tuning the History Discipline project, and Ron Tyler, former director of the Texas State Historical Association. The conference will take place on February 16 and 17, 2018. Registration is required and free of charge. For more information, visit the Wichita Falls visitors website.