Columbia University
Professor Natasha Lightfoot Leads Curation of Exhibit at New Government House Museum of Antigua & Barbuda
04/17 – Prof. Lightfoot Leads Exhibit Curation at New Government House Museum of Antigua & Barbuda
Last Friday, the new Government House Museum of Antigua & Barbuda celebrated its official opening, cementing its status as a National Heritage Site and concluding a restoration project that began over a decade ago. The museum is dedicated to tracing the country’s history from the onset of British rule in 1632, through emancipation in 1834, independence in 1981, and through to the present day, and is housed in the residence of the island’s Governor General Sir Rodney Williams. Professor Natasha Lightfoot served on the Heritage Panel and led the curation of the slavery and freedom section of the museum, selecting images and objects for display and composing narratives to accompany them.
Professor Sailakshmi Ramgopal Harvard Fellowship and Franklin Research Grant
Prof. Sailakshmi Ramgopal Awarded Research Grant & Harvard Fellowship
In addition to being elected as a Fellow at Harvard’s Center for Hellenic Studies for Spring 2027, Professor Ramgopal has received a Franklin Research Grant from the American Philosophical Society for her research on Roman Greece.
Kimberly Phillips-Fein WNYC Panel – Mamdani First 100 Days
04/20 – Prof. Kimberly Phillips-Fein Discusses Mayor Mamdani’s First 100 Days with WNYC Panel
The event, moderated by senior WNYC reporter Brigid Bergin, opened with an hour-long, one-on-one interview with Mayor Zohran Mamdani and was followed by a panel discussion around his first 100 days in office. The panel featured Professor Kimberly Phillips-Fein, Robert Gardiner-Kenneth T. Jackson Professor of History at Columbia University and author of Fear City: New York’s Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics; Dennis M. Walcott, President and CEO of Queens Public Library and member of Mayor Mamdani’s and Comptroller Mark Levine’s transition committees; and Melissa Mark Viverito, President of Hamilton Campaign Network. The full video, featuring the interview with Mayor Mamdani and the ensuing panel discussion (starting at 1:10:00), can be found here.
Prof. Elisheva Carlebach, Recent interview in Columbia News…
02/09 – Prof. Elisheva Carlebach Explores Women’s Power in Early Modern Jewish Communities – Columbia News.
Columbia historian Elisheva Carlebach explores the vital roles Jewish women played in early modern European communal life in her new book A Woman Is Responsible for Everything, co-authored with Debra Kaplan. Drawing on previously overlooked archival sources, the work highlights how women managed households and professions, led institutions, created texts and objects, and contributed economically and spiritually to their communities—from wealthy patrons to poor laborers. The book offers fresh insights into the kehillah, a thriving form of Jewish communal life from the early modern period. Read the full interview here.
2025 Book Releases
Martha Howell, Making Merchants, The Cultural Construction of a Merchant Class in Early Modern Germany. October, 2025: Cambridge University Press.
Mark Mazower, On Antisemitism: A word in History. September, 2025: Penguin Press.
A. Tunç Şen, Forgotten Experts: Astrologers, Science, and Authority in the Ottoman Empire, 1450 – 1600. 2025: Stanford University Press.
Paul Thomas Chamberlin, Scorched Earth: A Global History of World War II. 2025: Basic Books.
2024 Book Releases
David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz, Building the Worlds that Kill Us: Disease, Death, and Inequality in American History. 2024: Columbia University Press
Manan Ahmed, Disrupted City: Walking the Pathways of Memory and History in Lahore. 2024: The New Press
Frank Guridy, The Stadium: An American History of Politics, Protest, and Play. 2024: Basic Books
Mae Ngai, Chee Wang Ng, and Corky Lee (eds.), Corky Lee’s Asian America: Fifty Years of Photographic Justice. 2024: Clarkson Potter
Marc Van De Mieroop, A History of the Ancient Near East ca. 3000 – 323 BC, 4th Edition. 2024: Wiley-Blackwell.
2023 Book Releases
Catherine Evtuhov, Julia Lajus, and David Moon (eds.), Thinking Russia’s History Environmentally. 2023: Berghahn Books
2022 Book Releases
Hilary Hallett. Inventing the It Girl: How Elinor Glyn Created the Modern Romance and Conquered Early Hollywood. 2022: Liveright.
Ira Katznelson and Greg Wawro. Time Counts: Quantitative Analysis for Historical Social Science. 2022: Princeton University Press.