News
2013
The Power of Space in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, co-edited by Martha Howell, has been release.
Eric Foner was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from the State University of New York
Carol Gluck was chosen as a recipient of the 2012-2013 Faculty Mentoring Award for faculty in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS). The Graduate Student Advisory Council instituted this award in 2004 to commemorate excellence in the mentoring of Ph.D. students. This award is a student initiative; selections were made entirely by graduate student representatives from GSAS and affiliated schools. The Faculty Mentoring Award will be formally presented at this year's Ph.D. Convocation on May 19th.
"Empire States: On Pankaj Mishra," an article written by Thomas Meaney, PhD Candidate, was featured on The Nation.
"Mali: Which Way Forward?" A chat with Bruce Hall, Baz Lecocq, Gregory Mann and Bruce Whitehouse can be found on African Arguments.
"Pakistan's Tyrannical Majority," written by Manan Ahmed, was featured in The Opinion Pages of The New York Times.
Alan Brinkley's piece "Fighting the Gun World," has been featured on Reuters' The Great Debate.
Karl Jacoby has been quoted in The Wall Street Journal's article "The Feud That Keeps on Giving."
Samuel Moyn's article "Why the Court Was Right About the Alien Tort Statute" was featured on Foreign Affairs.
The Department of History congratulates Professor Barbara J. Fields on receiving a 2013 Columbia University Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching. This is just the latest in an impressive string of awards--including a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellows Award in 1992--for her work on the history of the American South, focusing particularly on the history of the Civil War and Reconstruction. In 2012, Professor Fields published a widely reviewed book with Karen Fields, Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life (New York: Verso, 2012). The Department chose this book as the sole work by a departmental faculty member to be taught as part of the Department’s Historiography and Methods course required of all first-year graduate students. This year, Professor Fields is incoming President of the Southern Historical Association.
"Was Slavery as Harmful in the North as It Was in the South," a book review written by Eric Herschthal, PhD Candidate, has been featured on The Daily Beast.
Rashid Khalidi critiques U.S. role in MidEast Peace Process in PBS's "Has the U.S. Undermined Middle East Peace?"
Mark Mazower's article, "No Exit?: Greece's Ongoing Crisis," was featured on The Nation
William V. Harris' new book, Mental Disorders in the Classical World, has been released.
Gregory Mann was featured in the Washington Post article "Niger rapidly emerges as a key U.S. partner in anti-terrorism fight in Africa."
"Post-Hysterics: Zadie Smith and the Fiction of Austerity," written by David Marcus, PhD Candidate, was featured in Dissent.
Rhiannon Stephens has been named a MacDonald Summer Fellow for 2013.
David Rosner's new book, Lead Wars, has been released.
"Hunter-Blatherer: On Jared Diamond," a new piece by PhD candidate, Stephen Wertheim was featured in The Nation.
Robert Neer, Core Lecturer, was interviewed by TIME Magazine: "Napalm: A True American Tale."
Marc Van De Mieroop and Lynn Garafola have been awarded Guggenheim Fellowships. As also mentioned in Columbia University's ON CAMPUS.
William Leach's new book, Butterfly People, has been released.
Mae Ngai spoke at a Congressional briefing on Immigration History on April 5. The video can be viewed here.
Core Lecturer Robert Neer's widely reviewed new book, Napalm, An American Biography, was selected by Publisher's Weekly as one of the Best New Books of the week. Neer was also interviewed on WBUR, a Boston NPR affiliate, and by the Boston Globe.
Rashid Khalidi's new book, Brokers of Deceit, has been released.
Nishant Batsha, PhD candidate, was awarded the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans. For more information, please visit this link.
Caterina Pizzigoni has been named a Davis Center Fellow at the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies at Princeton University for her new project, "Special Dwellers: Saints and People in the Mexican Household, 1600-1800."
Julia del Palacio-Langer and Tobias Harper, PhD candidates, have both been chosen as winners of the 2013-14 Teaching Scholars competition for their course proposal, and have received approval from the Undergraduate Committee on Instruction. Their course proposals are as follows: "The History of Latin American Popular Culture" (del Palacio-Langer), and "Victorian Worlds: British Society, 1837-1901" (Harper).
"Welcome to Mali," an article written by Gregory Mann, is featured on Africa Is a Country.
Ira Katznelson was delivered by The Record: "Prof. Ira Katznelson's Book Offers a New View of the New Deal."
"Is Any Hope Left for Mideast Peace?," written by Rashid Khalidi, is featured in The Opinion Pages of The New York Times.
Neslihan Senocak has been awared the I Tatti Fellowship for 2013-14 in the Villa I Tatti, The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies in Florence.
Greg Mann was interviewed by Columbia News: "U.S. Engagement in Mali."
Carl Wennerlind has been featured in Columbia University's Research: "Expert in 17th Century English Economic History Sees Parallels to Today's Fiscal Crisis."
Caterina Pizzigoni was awarded the Lenfest Distinguished Faculty Award. For more imformation, please see On Campus and page 4 of The Record.
Rashid Khalidi's new book Brokers of Deceit will be released March 2013.
Marco Maiuro's new book Res Caesaris has been released.
"Comprehensive Immigration Reform and the Elephant in the Room," written by Mae Ngai, is featured in Dissent.
Mae Ngai was interviewed on Democracy Now!: "Obama Offers Hope on Immigration Reform, But Emphasis on Enforcement Portends More Criminalization."
The Life Within: Local Indigenous Society in Mexico's Toluca Valley, 1650-1800 by Caterina Pizzigoni and The Earthquake Observers: Disaster Science from Lisbon to Richter by Deborah Coen were both featured on Columbia Ink: New Books By Faculty.
Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life by Barbara J. Fields and Karen Fields was reviewed in the London Review of Books.
Mae Ngai's op-ed piece on immigration reform appeared in the New York Times.
Gregory Mann was interviewed by NPR: "Latest Battle In Mali Has Deep Roots."
Hilary Hallett's new book is featured on Columbia News: "Go West, Young Women: Historian Hilary Hallett's New Perspective on Early Hollywood."
Deborah Coen's new book The Earthquake Observers has been released.
Gregory Mann's recent interview with Mediapart can be found here: "Mali: France et Etats-Unis ont aussi contribué au pourrissement."
"Mali Is Not Too Far Gone," written by Gregory Mann, is featured in The Opinion Pages of the New York Times.
Gregory Mann on Mali: Article "Pourquoi la France a eu raison d'intervenir au Mali" was featured on SlateAfrique; Article "France in Mali: the End of the Fairytale" was featured on Africa Is A Country;Video "France at War" was featured on France 24.
"Promises and Perils of Transnational History," written by Mae Ngai, is featured in the Perspectives on History.
Hilary Hallett's new book, Go West, Young Women!: The Rise of Early Hollywood has just been published by University of California Press. To get a bit of the book's flavour please see the Campaign for the American Reader.
Deborah Coen's new book The Earthquake Observers has been released.
Gregory Mann's recent interview with Mediapart can be found here: "Mali: France et Etats-Unis ont aussi contribué au pourrissement."
"Mali Is Not Too Far Gone," written by Gregory Mann, is featured in The Opinion Pages of the New York Times.
Gregory Mann on Mali: Article "Pourquoi la France a eu raison d'intervenir au Mali" was featured on SlateAfrique; Article "France in Mali: the End of the Fairytale" was featured on Africa Is A Country;Video "France at War" was featured on France 24.
"Promises and Perils of Transnational History," written by Mae Ngai, is featured in the Perspectives on History.
Hilary Hallett's new book, Go West, Young Women!: The Rise of Early Hollywood has just been published by University of California Press. To get a bit of the book's flavour please see the Campaign for the American Reader.
Samuel Roberts, Associate Professor of History, has received an additional appointment as Associate Professor of Sociomedical Sciences, Mailman School of Public Health.
"The Emancipation of Abe Lincoln," written by Eric Foner, is featured in The Opinion Pages of the New York Times.
2012
"Birds: The Inner Life," written by Robert Paxton, is featured in The New York Review of Books.
Marco Maiuro has been awarded a Marie Curie - Gerda Henkel Foundation Experienced Researchers Fellowship for 24 months of research in Germany.
Etienne Stockland, PhD student in early modern European history, has won the 2012 annual competition for best article from the journal, Annals of Science, for his essay, "'La Guerre aux Insectes': Pest Control and Agricultural Reform in the French Enlightenment."
Charles Armstrong's article "North Korea launch for domestic consumption" is featured on CNN.
Gregory Mann's article "Mali Prime Minister's Resignation Edges the Country Closer to War" is featured in the Guardian.
A review of Mark Mazower's new book Governing the World: A History of an Idea appeared in the Washington Post.
"The Horizontalists" an essay written by David Marcus, PhD candidate, has been featured in Dissent.
Marco Maiuro has been awarded a Marie Curie-Gerda Henkel Foundation Experienced Researchers Fellowship for a 24-month fully funded research stay in Germany.
"Chicken Wire and Telephone Calls: On Robert Caro's LBJ," an article written by Thomas Meaney, PhD candidate, has been featured in The Nation.
"Shelf Life," an article written by Stephen Wertheim, PhD candidate, has been featured in The Nation.
Rashid Khalidi's article "Obama's Three Options" has been featured in Foreign Policy.
Rebecca Kobrin has received the Association for Jewish Studies 2012 Jordan Schnitzer Book Award in the area of Modern Jewish History-Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania. The Schnitzer Book Award was established in 2007 to recognize and promote outstanding scholarship in the field of Jewish Studies and to honor scholars whose work embodies the best in the field: innovative research, excellent writing, and sophisticated methodology. In selecting her book, Jewish Bialystok and Its Diaspora (Indiana University Press), the Prize Committee wrote:
"Rebecca Kobrin's Jewish Bialystok and Its Diaspora provides a fresh new perspective in its treatment of Eastern European Jewish immigration to the United States and to other lands of immigration around the globe. Viewing the process of migration through the lens of a single Eastern European Jewish community, the Polish manufacturing center of Bialystok, Kobrin helps the reader understand this great human movement in more personal terms....With her attention to transnationalism, diaspora studies, and network theory, Kobrin's work brings the fields of American and modern Jewish history into dialogue with the most current approaches in historical research and writing."
Adam Kosto's new book Documentary Culture and the Laity in the Early Middle Ages has been released.
Eric Foner's Letter to the Editor regarding "Lincoln's Use of Politics for Noble Ends" has been featured in the NYTimes's Opinion Pages.
The Department congratulates Nicholas B. Dirks, Franz Boas Professor of Anthropology and Professor of History, and Executive Vice President of Arts and Science, on being named the next Chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley. Columbia News and New York Times coverage.
Greg Mann's article "Mali: Military Intervention is Both Essential and Inevitable" is featured in The Guardian.
Alan Brinkley weighs in on Barack Obama's win and Election 2012. Read here: On Campus.
The World Health Organization (WHO) inaugurated the Mailman School’s Center for the History and Ethics of Public Health as a WHO Collaborating Center for Bioethics, the only such center that explicitly focuses on the ethics of public health. Read more here.
Mark Mazower has been awarded the Dido Sotiriou Award by the Hellenic Authors' Society at a ceremony in Athens. The award, established by society in memory of writer famed Dido Sotiriou, is presented to a foreign or Greek author whose writing highlights the interaction between people and cultures through cultural diversity.
The Department of History mourns the passing of Jacques Barzun on October 25, 2012 at the age of 104. Barzun majored in history at Columbia College, graduating as class valedictorian in 1927 at age 19. On graduation, he was immediately appointed an instructor in the history department, and in 1932 earned his Ph.D. with a thesis on Montesquieu, which he published as The French Race: Theories of Its Origins and Their Social and Political Implications, and incorporated into Race: a Study in Modern Superstition. He became a full professor in 1945, Seth Low Professor of History in 1960, and in 1967, Barzun was appointed University Professor. Over his long life, he authored or edited more than 30 books, including influential works of educational philosophy, historical research methodology, literary criticism, cultural critique, and history.
The Department congratulates Susan Pedersen, who has been named the Ford Lecturer at Trinity College, Oxford, for Hilary Term 2014. These lectures, named in honor of James Ford (1779-1851), have been held yearly since 1896. Professor Pedersen will be the sixth female Ford Lecturer in the 118 years of the Lectures.
"The Tragedy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Hans von Dohnanyi," a piece written by Fritz Stern, Professor Emeritus, was featured in The New York Review of Books.
David Rosner and Professor Paul-André Rosental of Science-Po, Paris, have been awarded an Alliance Program grant for their project entitled, "Conference on Silicosis: Industrial and Social Origins of Disease."
Mae Ngai and Professor Riva Kastoryano of Science-Po, Paris, have been awarded an Alliance Program grant for co-teaching a graduate course,"Migration and Citizenship in the U.S. and Europe: Transnational Challenges Then and Now." The course will be offered in Spring 2014.
"The Religion of Science and Its High Priest," a review written by Thomas Meaney, PhD candidate, has been featured in The New York Review of Books. His second review "Half-Finished People" has been featured in London Revew of Books.
Barbara Fields's new book Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life has been released.
Mark Lilla's review of Charles R. Kesler's 'I Am the Change' appeared on the New York Times's Sunday Book Review.
Mark Mazower's new book Governing the World has been released, as mentioned in the Columbia Ink.
Evan Haefeli's debut on the classic Dutch children's show Het Klokhuis is coming this October 30th. It is all about rediscovering New Amsterdam on a bright sunny day in New York. After October 30, you can watch Evan online on www.hetklokhuis.nl or www.uitzendinggemist.nl.
Adam Kosto's new book Hostages in the Middle Ages is released.
Adam Kosto has been elected a member of the Commission Internationale de Diplomatique. More information can be found here.
"A Preventable Massacre," an article written by Seth Anziska, PhD candidate, has been featured in the NYTimes's Opinion Pages. The lead story can also be found on Le Monde.
Hilary Hallett has been awarded the Western History Association's Jensen-Miller Prize for the best article in women's and gender history.
Two alumni/ae of the Department of History's PhD program, Ansley Erickson (Asst. Prof., Columbia Teachers College) and Alex Cummings (Asst. Prof., Georgia State University), have published essays on using digital tools in historical research and publication in Writing History in the Digital Age, a born-digital, open-review volume edited by Jack Dougherty and Kristen Nawrotzki. It will be published in conventional form by Univ. of Michigan Press, but for now the open-review version is available at writinghistory.trincoll.edu. It is an example of cutting edge, hybrid scholarly-review, open-review publishing.
Gregory Mann was featured in the article "West Africa Expert Hopes Mali Doesn't Devolve Into 'Africanistan,'" posted in Columbia News.
Rashid Khalidi's piece "America Has Shown Which Side It's On" has been featured in the NYTimes' debate Has Support for Israel Hurt U.S. Credibility?
Evan Haefeli has been awarded the Annual Hendricks Award for his latest book, New Netherland and the Dutch Origins of American Religious Liberty.
Marco Maiuro has been awarded a Research Fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for 2013-14, and he has also been selected as a CNRS Associate Research Fellow at the Ecole Normale Superieure for September to December 2012.
Charles Armstrong's article "The View from Pyongyang" has been featured in the NYTimes.
Kavita Sivaramakrishnan has been awarded the NSF Scholars Award, titled The Coming of Age: The Formation of the Global Science and Policy of Aging.
Pablo Piccato was interviewed on the Challenges Facing Mexico's New President.
Gregory Mann's article "Africanistan? Not Exactly" was featured in Foreign Policy.
Mae Ngai was awarded a Scholar Grant from the Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation for 2012-13 to support her project on Chinese gold miners.
Eric Foner was conferred with an honorary degree at Queen Mary, University of London, England on July 16th.
Samuel Roberts's article "Drug Wars Abroad, Prescription Pain Killers at Home" featured in HuffingtonPost.
Matt Jones has been awarded a New Directions Fellowship from the Mellon Foundation.
Caroline Bynum, Professor Emeritus, has been elected to Germany's distinguished Orden Pour Le Merite.
Ira Katznelson has been appointed President of the Social Science Research Council.
Marianne González Le Saux was awarded the CONICYT scholarship.
Evan Haefeli's new book New Netherland and the Dutch Origins of American Religious Liberty is released.
Hollis Lynch's, Professor Emeritus of History, new book K.O. Mbadiwe: A Nigerian Political Biography, 1915-1990 is released. K.O. Mbadiwe, who received his BS in banking and finance from Columbia University in 1943, was a leading figure in Nigerian politics for more than forty years.
Neslihan Senocak's new book The Poor and the Perfect is released.
Lindsay Clarke and Krzysztof Kosmicki, two International and World History Masters students, graduate with recognition.
Casey Blake and Andrew Delbanco are awarded the James P. Shenton Awards at the DDC Annual Graduation & Awards Ceremony.
Carl Wennerlind is the recepient of the Warren Samuels Prize for "The Role of Political Economy in Hume's Moral Philosophy." He was also awarded the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) research grant and the ACLS, Charles A. Ryskamp Research Fellowship grant to support the project "Scarcity: Historicizing the First Principle of Political Economy."
Ken Ruoff, 1997, was awarded the Frances Fuller Victor Award for General Nonfiction for Imperial Japan at its Zenith: The Wartime Celebration of the Empire's 2,600th Anniversary at the 25th Annual Oregon Book Awards Ceremony. It is also available in Japanese translation in the Asahi sensho series. The Japanese translation of Ruoff's first book, The People's Emperor: Democracy and the Japanese Monarchy, 1945-1995, which originated as his Ph.D. dissertation at Columbia University, won the major prize, Japan's equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize in 2003, the Jiro Osaragi Prize for Commentary presented annually by the Asahi Newspaper
Eric Foner will receive the GSAS Dean’s Award for Outstanding Achievement at the Ph.D. Convocation on May 13, 2012.
Melissa Borja was awarded both an ACLS/Mellon Dissertation Fellowship for 2012-2013 (accepted) and a Charlotte Newcombe Dissertation Fellowship (declined).
Rosie Bsheer was awarded both an ACLS/Mellon Dissertation Fellowship for 2012-2013 (accepted) and a Whiting Fellowship (declined).
Alice Kessler-Harris discusses her new book A Difficult Woman in the latest Columbia News article "History Professor Uses Lillian Hellman as Lens to Study 20th Century." Read the full article. The book was also reviewed by the Boston Globe on April 22, 2012. Read the full article.
Neslihan Senocak is named MacDonald Summer Fellow for 2012 by the Columbia Faculty Development Committee. Her proposal to conduct archival research in England that explores how scholarly learning became an integral part of the Roman Catholic clergy, received special recognition.
Eileen Ryan, PhD student, has been offered a tenure-track position at Temple University.
Mehmet Dosemeci, 2009 PhD graduate, has been offered a tenure-track position at Duquesne University.
Mae Ngai has been awarded a fellowship from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Manning Marable has posthumously been awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his biography of Malcolm X titled "Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention." Please visit the Pulitzer Prize website.
David Lurie has won the Lionel Trilling Award for his book Realms of Literacy: Early Japan and the History of Writing.
Natasha Lightfoot has been awarded a Ford Foundation and administered by the National Research Council of the National Academies. The Ford Foundation Fellowships at the postdoctoral level are intended to identify and facilitate the academic, intellectual, and professional development of individuals who have demonstrated superior scholarship, are committed to a career in teaching and research at the college or university level, show promise of future achievement as scholars and teachers, and are well prepared to use diversity as a resource for enriching the education of all students.
Sarah Bridger has been awarded the Allan Nevins Prize from the Society of American Historians, a national award for the best dissertation of the past year.
Matt Jones has been awarded a 3-year Mellon New Directions grant.
Matt Jones has also been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in the Humanities (History of Science, Technology, and Economics).
Elizabeth Hinton, PhD candidate, has been offered a three-year postdoc at the University of Michigan.
Amy Offner, PhD candidate, has been offered a tenure track position in U.S. History at UPenn.
Elizabeth Blackmar is awarded a Cullman Fellowship.
Mae Ngai is awarded a Cullman Fellowship.
Pablo Piccato was awarded 2011 Alliance Faculty Joint Projects Award for "Beyond National History: State Formation in Transnational Perspective: Institutions, Political Practices and Society."
Thomas Rath, 2009 PhD graduate, has been offered tenure track position at University College, London. His faculty sponsor was Pablo Piccato.