Dissertations-in-Progess
Students begin research for the dissertation after they receive their M.Phil. degree, which is earned after successful completion of required course work, language exams, and an oral qualifying exam that covers three subjects in the student's major field of study and one in their minor field. Students typically reach this stage during their third year of graduate study, although some do not complete these tasks until the fourth year.
More information may be found at the American Historical Association page for the department.
2012-13 Department of History Dissertation-in-Progress
Dissertator: Alexander, Amanda
Advisor: Mann, Gregory
Dissertation title: "Property and Democracy in Transition: Land and the Politics of Redistribution in South Africa"
Dissertator: Anziska, Seth
Advisor: Khalidi, Rashid
Dissertation title: Cold War Revival in the Middle East and the Remaking of American Foreign Policy, 1978-1988
Dissertator: Appel, Jacob
Advisor: Brinkley, Alan
Dissertation title: "Experts on Trial: Medical Evidence and Moral Culpability in New York City's Sensational Criminal Prosecutions, 1902-12"
Dissertator: Arena, Carolyn
Advisor: Brown, Christopher
Dissertation title: The Invisible Hands: Indian Labor, Slave Trading, and Mercantilism in the 17th century Caribbean
Dissertator: Baggett, Gregory
Advisor: Fields, Barbara J.
Dissertation title: "Slavery and Emancipation 10 Miles Square: The District of Columbia before Federal Rule, 1846-71"
Dissertator: Barker, Hannah
Advisor: Kosto, Adam
Dissertation title: "Egyptian and Italian Merchants in the Black Sea Slave Trade, 1260–1453"
Dissertator: Baurkot, Samuel
Advisor: Berghahn, Volker
Dissertation title: "Kurt Birrenbach and the Evolution of German Atlanticism, 1945-76"
Dissertator: Berkowitz, Michael
Advisor: Brinkley, Alan
Dissertation title: "Time Off: Vacations, Tourism, and the Business of Leisure, 1900-45"
Dissertator: Bertschi, Curtis
Advisor: De Grazia, Victoria
Dissertation title: "Representing the Automobile: Renault, the State, and the Promotion of Motorization in France, 1945-75"
Dissertator: Borja, Melissa
Advisor: Ngai, Mae
Dissertation title: "To Follow the New Rule or Way": Hmong Refugee Resettlement and Religious Change"
Dissertator: Bsheer, Rosie
Advisor: Khalidi, Rashid
Dissertation title: "Making History: Archives, Museums, and History Textbooks in Saudi Arabia"
Dissertator: Castro, Constanza
Advisor: Piccato, Pablo
Dissertation title: "'As a Citizen of this City': The Popular Political Culture of Urbanization, Bogotá, 1880-1910"
Dissertator: Chang, Yi-Hsiang
Advisor: Zelin, Madeleine
Dissertation title: "The Formation of Legal Modernity: China’s Professional Judges in the Period of Judicial Modernization, 1907–49"
Dissertator: Chatani, Sayaka
Advisor: Armstrong, Charles K.
Dissertation title: "Nation of Youth: The Mobilization of Rural Youth in Japan, Okinawa, Taiwan, and Korea, 1915–50"
Dissertator: Cho, Jun Hee
Advisor: Howell, Martha
Dissertation title: "Court in the Market: Mechelen during the Reign of Charles the Bold, 1467-77"
Dissertator: Coleman, William
Advisor: Zelin, Madeleine
Dissertation title: "Between Empires: Power in Khams History, 1860-1949"
Dissertator: Cook, Sarah
Advisor: Mann, Gregory
Dissertation title: Making Global Health in Cameroon, 1945-1970
Dissertator: County, Brandon
Advisor: Mann, Gregory
Dissertation title: "Cheminots into Citizens: Labor, Migration, and Political Imagination along the Dakar-Niger Railroad, 1923–74"
Dissertator: Craig, Christopher
Advisor: Gluck, Carol N.
Dissertation title: "The Middlemen of Modernity: Local Notables and Rural Development, 1890-1930"
Dissertator: Dee-Das, Joanna
Advisor: Foner, Eric
Dissertation title: Staging the African Diaspora: The Aesthetics and Politics of Katherine Dunham
Dissertator: Deimling, George
Advisor: Billows, Richard A.
Dissertation title: "The Empire of Mithridates Eupator: A Study of the Pontic State and Its Resources, 132-62 B.C.E."
Dissertator: del Palacio-Langer, Julia
Advisor: Lomnitz, Claudio
Dissertation title: Oil Expropriation, National Property and Political Culture in Mexico, 1932-1958
Dissertator: Dunitz, Sarah
Advisor: Kessler-Harris, Alice
Dissertation title: Learning, Labour and Liberal Democracies: Schooling and the State in the United States and England, 1914-1945
Dissertator: Dos Santos, George
Advisor: De Grazia, Victoria
Dissertation title: "'We Understand the Negroes!' Colonial Theory and the Crusading Myth in the Portuguese New State, 1926-74"
Dissertator: Edey-Rhodes, Joanne
Advisor: Wright, Marcia
Dissertation title: "African American Interest in Black South Africa, 1898-1964"
Dissertator: Eichler, Jeremy
Advisor: Berghahn, Volker
Dissertation title: "Exile beneath the Palms: Modernism and Music in Southern California, 1933-62"
Dissertator: Etienne-Cummings, Kevin
Advisor: Diouf, Mamadou
Dissertation title: "Claims for Imperial Citizenship in the British Empire, with the Seychelles as a Case Study"
Dissertator: Forcey, Charles
Advisor: Brinkley, Alan
Dissertation title: "Liberalism at the Gates of Hell: The Search for a New Public Philosophy after World War II"
Dissertator: French-Marcelin, Megan
Advisor: Katznelson, Ira
Dissertation title: “Triumphant Triage: Community Development in New Orleans 1972-1996”
Dissertator: Georgy, Joshua
Advisor: Khalidi, Rashid
Dissertation title: Imagined Minority? The Limits of Coptic History
Dissertator: Ghosh, Arunabh
Advisor: Zelin, Madeleine
Dissertation title: "Making It Count: Demography and Statistical Science in the Early People’s Republic of China"
Dissertator: Glasberg, Debra
Advisor: Carlebach, Elisheva
Dissertation title: Innovative Tradition: A Jewish Encyclopedia in Eighteenth Century Italy
Dissertator: Gubara, Dahlia
Advisor: Bulliet, Richard W.
Dissertation title: "Trajectories of Learning and The Everyday Life of Ideas: Al-Azhar in the 18th Century"
Dissertator: Guzmán, Romeo
Advisor: Piccato, Pablo
Dissertation title: Diaspora and Mexican Nationhood: The Rise of the Second Generation in Greater Mexico
Dissertator: Hadbavny, Lee
Advisor: Kaye, Joel
Dissertation title: "Warriors, Healers, and Pastors: Hospitallers and Templars in England and Northern France, c. 1095-c. 1291"
Dissertator: Hamer, Deborah
Advisor: Howell, Martha
Dissertation title: "Marriage Policies and Marriage Practices in the Dutch Colonies of the 17th Century"
Dissertator: Harper, Tobias
Advisor: Pedersen, Susan
Dissertation title: "Orders of Merit? The Expansion of the British Honours System since 1917"
Dissertator: Jackson, Justin
Advisor: Foner, Eric
Dissertation title: The Work of Empire: Military Labor in the Making of U.S. Expansion, 1890-1934
Dissertator: John, Maria
Advisor: Haefeli, Evan
Dissertation title: Indigenous Spaces in the City: Native Medical Clinics and The Politics of Indigenous Health in Sydney and Seattle, 1950-1980
Dissertator: Johnston, Katherine
Advisor: Brown, Christopher
Dissertation title: The Experience of Hot Climates: Health, Race, and the Body in the British Atlantic World
Dissertator: Kaicker, Abhishek
Advisor: Dirks, Nicholas
Dissertation title: "Urban Politics and Culture in the Late Mughal Empire"
Dissertator: Kahn, Suzanne
Advisor: Kessler-Harris, Alice
Dissertation title: Divorce and the Politics of the Social Welfare Regime, 1960-1996
Dissertator: Kim, Hayang
Advisor: Gluck, Carol
Dissertation title: "Making Sense: The Sciences of Mind in Modern Japan, 1870-1930”
Dissertator: Kirshen, Sarah
Advisor: Kessler-Harris, Alice
Dissertation title: Family Values: Marriage, Statistics and the State, 1839-1909
Dissertator: Klein, Frederick
Advisor: Stanislawski, Michael F.
Dissertation title: "Rabbis and Maskilim: The Galician Haskalah as an Alternative Religious Ideology, 1800-65"
Dissertator: Lee, Jessica
Advisor: Ngai, Mae
Dissertation title: To the Seventh Generation: State Use of Italian Immigrant Transnationalism, 1922-1948
Dissertator: Liu, Andrew
Advisor: McKeown, Adam
Dissertation title: "Tea and Labor: The Comodification of Agrarian Labor in South China and Northeast India, 1839–1911"
Dissertator: Low, Christopher
Advisor: Bulliet, Richard
Dissertation title: Pilgrams, Plagues, and Pan-Islam: Anglo-Ottoman Rivalry in the Muslim Holy Land
Dissertator: Lowder, Leon
Advisor: Abrams, Bradley
Dissertation title: "The Socialist Lifestyle: The Bulgarian Middle Class in the Age of Zhivkov, 1956-89"
Dissertator: Luo, Weiwei
Advisor: Zelin, Madeleine
Dissertation title: The Buddhist World: China, 1600-1900
Dissertator: Lyons, Benjamin
Advisor: Haefeli, Evan
Dissertation title: John Jay and the Law of Nations: In Defense of American Independence, 1760-1795
Dissertator: MacNamara, Lawrence
Advisor: Connelly, Matthew
Dissertation title: Birth Control and the Good Life in America, 1900-1940
Dissertator: Mahla, Martin
Advisor: Stanislawski, Michael F.
Dissertation title: "Nationalizing Religion: Religious Zionism in Poland, Germany, and Palestine, 1914–48"
Dissertator: Maksymiuk, Dan
Advisor: De Grazia, Victoria
Dissertation title: "International Intellectual Cooperation: The Cultural Politics of the League of Nations, 1918-39"
Dissertator: Manasek, Jared
Advisor: Mazower, Mark
Dissertation title: "Empires, States, and the Politics of Refugee Aid, 1875-78: A Balkan Turning Point?"
Dissertator: Mann-Tweel, Tamara
Advisor: Blackmar, Elizabeth
Dissertation title: Honor Thy Father and Mother: Old Age in a New America, 1945-1965
Dissertator: Mays, Susan
Advisor: Zelin, Madeleine
Dissertation title: "Rapid Advance: A History of China’s Semiconductor Industry, 1970–2005"
Dissertator: Miller, Owen
Advisor: Bulliet, Richard
Dissertation title: Refugees and the Struggle over Land in the Ottoman Adana, Aydin and Ma’muretu’l-aziz, 1857-1915
Dissertator: Monroe, William
Advisor: Somerville, Robert
Dissertation title: "The Trial and Rehabilitation of Pope Formosus"
Dissertator: Morales, Daniel
Advisor: Ngai, Mae
Dissertation title: Laying Their Own Path: Migrants, Capaitalist Development and the Making of Mexican America, 1880-1930
Dissertator: Murphey, Oliver
Advisor: Connelly, Matthew
Dissertation title: A bond that will permanently endure-the Eisenhower administration, the Bolivian revolution and Latin American leftist nationalism
Dissertator: Neuss, Michael
Advisor: Jones, Matthew
Dissertation title: Balancing Blood, Balancing Books: Medicine, Commerce, and the Royal Court in Seventeenth-Century England
Dissertator: Oda, Yuki
Advisor: Ngai, Mae
Dissertation title: Family Unity in U.S. Immigration Policy, 1921-1976
Dissertator: O'Mahony-Adams, Pandora
Advisor: Mann, Gregory
Dissertation title: "The African Circle and the African Personality: Egypt and the Emergence of a Continental Politics, 1952–70"
Dissertator: Orejel, Keith
Advisor: Brinkley, Alan
Dissertation title: Constructing the Countryside: Political Economy of Modern Rural America, 1945-2000
Dissertator: Osborne, Nicholas
Advisor: Foner, Eric
Dissertation title: "The Little Capitalists: Savings Institutions in U.S. History, 1816-1941"
Dissertator: Phillips, Victoria
Advisor: Foner, Eric
Dissertation title: "The Strange Commodity of Cultural Exchange: Martha Graham and Modern Dance as a Cold War Weapon, 1955-79"
Dissertator: Popescu, Adina
Advisor: Blackmar, Elizabeth
Dissertation title: "The Grain Trade during World War I: Wartime Regulation and the Concentration of Agricultural Capital"
Dissertator: Priyadarshini, Meha
Advisor: McKeown, Adam
Dissertation title: "Mexican Chocolate in Chinese Teacups: Crafting Objects and Tastes in the Early Modern Pacific World"
Dissertator: Raskin, Sarah
Advisor: Howell, Martha
Dissertation title: "False Oaths: The Silent Alliance between the Church and Heretics in England, 1382-1558"
Dissertator: Roane, James
Advisor: Roberts, Samuel
Dissertation title: “Body Build”, nutrition, and the politics of health and the body in the United States, 1920-1975
Dissertator: Robeson, Elizabeth Lynn
Advisor: Fields, Barbara J.
Dissertation title: "Death in the Family: The Lowman Lynchings of 1926"
Dissertator: Rubin, Ariel
Advisor: Weiman, David
Dissertation title: "Low-Level Credit Networks in the 16th-Century Netherlands"
Dissertator: Rubin, Gil
Advisor: Mazower, Mark
Dissertation title: Retreat from Europe: The Transformation of Jewish Politics in World War II
Dissertator: Schumer, Nathan
Advisor: Schwartz, Seth
Dissertation title: The Second Temple Past in Rabbinic Literature: Memory and the Formation of Rabbinic Identity
Dissertator: Shenk, Timothy
Advisor: Brinkley, Alan
Dissertation title: Inventing the American Economy
Dissertator: Skloot, Joseph
Advisor: Carlebach, Elisheva
Dissertation title: The Social Effects of Hebrew Print in the Sixteenth Century: Context and Conflict
Dissertator: Spooner, Matthew
Advisor: Foner, Eric
Dissertation title: Origins of the Old South: The Reconstruction of Southern Slavery, 1778-1808
Dissertator: Stahl, Dale
Advisor: Khalidi, Rashid
Dissertation title: "The Two Rivers: Water, Development, and Politics in the Tigris-Euphrates Basin, 1914–75"
Dissertator: Stevens, Simon
Advisor: Connelly, Matthew
Dissertation title: International Pressure and the End of Apartheid, 1959-1994
Dissertator: Taylor, Simon
Advisor: Moyn, Samuel
Dissertation title: The Anxiety of Unreason: The Making of Existential Analysis, 1850-1980
Dissertator: Tessler, Ezra
Advisor: Blackmar, Elizabeth
Dissertation title: One World in Penology?" The Federal Bureau of Prisons at home and abroad and the course of the modern penal welfare state, 1945-1975
Dissertator: Tezcanli, Merve
Advisor: Philliou, Christine
Dissertation title: "Subjecthood and Citizenship across Borders: Hadhramis Arabs and ‘Asiatic Ottomans’ of Dutch Indonesia"
Dissertator: Toler, Herbert
Advisor: Foner, Eric
Dissertation title: "Religion and Reconstruction in Washington, D.C., 1862-78"
Dissertator: von Ostenfeld, Kira
Advisor: Howell, Martha
Dissertation title: "Official Historiography, Political Legitimacy, and Royal Authority in Spain under Phillip II, 1560-99"
Dissertator: Wachtel, David
Advisor: Stanislawski, Michael F.
Dissertation title: "Alexander Marx and the Formation of the Great American Libraries of Judaica: 1903-53"
Dissertator: Weiner, Benno
Advisor: Tuttle, Gray
Dissertation title: "The Chinese Cultural Revolution on the Tibetan Frontier: Fragmentation, Integration, and State Building on the Margins of Maoist China"
Dissertator: Wertheim, Stephen
Advisor: Connelly, Matthew
Dissertation title: Will to Lead the World: The birth of U.S. world leadership and the strange victory of American internationalism, 1939-1945
Dissertator: Wheatley, Natasha
Advisor: Mazower, Mark
Dissertation title: Historic Precedents, Historic Rights: Time, Territory, and International Order, 1848-1948
Dissertator: Zonis, Nadia
Advisor: De Grazia, Victoria
Dissertation title: "The Next Rome: Modernity, the 'Economic Miracle' and the Olympic Games, 1955-60"