January26 - UMD Department of History Newsletter

Moments in History January 2026 Newsletter Philip Soergel. The Department of History is devastated by the sudden loss of our colleague, Philip Soergel, who passed away on January 7, 2026. Phil joined our department in 2005 as an associate professor, became full professor in 2012, and served as chair of the department for a decade until 2022. Phil received his Ph.D. in medieval and early modern European history from the University of Michigan in 1988. Before joining us at the University of Maryland, he was a member of the Department of History at Arizona State University in Tempe from 1989 to 2005. He is the author of Wondrous in His Saints: Counter-Reformation Propaganda in Bavaria (California, 1993) and Miracles and the Protestant Imagination (Oxford, 2012). He was also a co-editor of the Routledge series Religious Cultures in the Early Modern World. He received grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, and the American Philosophical Society. He was a former member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, had been a fellow of the Duke August Library in Wolfenbüttel, Germany, and served twice as a visiting professor at the University of Bielefeld in Germany. Phil was an exceptionally wide-ranging scholar whose interests included literature, music, art history, and the study of gender and sexuality; the Italian and Northern European Renaissances; the medieval and early modern church and lay religion; and both the Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation. Forever a fan of Martin Luther, in his later years, he was researching the continued cultural and social legacy of Lutheran church music. In Memoriam 3 In Memoriam 4 Awards & Recognitions 7 nEW FACULTY 9 faculty moments - presentations, media features, and news 14 faculty moments - Recent publications 16 current students - undergraduate 17 current students - graduate 20 alumni news 22 Our Centers 24 Follow us on SOCIAL MEDIA Inside This Issue The Freedmen and Southern Society Project (FSSP) has received a $300,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to support the editing of its landmark documentary book, Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation, 1861–1867. The new funding will allow project staff to complete work on Family & Kinship, the ninth volume in the 10-volume series, and to advance work on the final volume, Church, School, and Community. Read more about FSSP's grant here. Marjorie Antonio (HiLS Student) was selected as one of the 2025–26 Public Engagement Fellows through The Frederick Douglass Center for Leadership Through the Humanities. Public Engagement Fellows receive support for projects that align with the mission of the Douglass Center to cultivate leadership among students, faculty, staff, and the general public with core values rooted in the humanities to advance a more just society. Holly Brewer and Dylan Bails (HiLS Student) received a 2025–26 Faculty–Student Research Award (FSRA). FSRA awards support faculty-led projects that directly involve graduate students. Each award provides $15,000 to fund collaborative research, scholarship or creative work. Brewer’s project, part of the Slavery, Law, and Power project, investigates how debates over racial slavery and power shaped justice in early America and the British Empire. It emphasizes the legal and political structures that enabled or resisted slavery and draws on new manuscript materials to expand access to historical sources. In September, Sarah Cameron's book, The Hungry Steppe, was named by the Kluge Center at the Library of Congress as one of the twenty-five most notable books published by a scholar in residence. This "25 for 25" project is in celebration of the Kluge Center's twenty-fifth anniversary. Read more here. Robert Chiles received the 2025 Provost’s Excellence Award for Professional Track Faculty for Teaching. He received this award for engaging and inspiring students, and bringing history to life with both analytical rigor and accessibility. Sarah Cobau (B.A. 2024) was one of two Terps to be awarded the Marshall Scholarship this December. The honor regonizes only 50 students nationwide to fund their graduate studies in the U.K. Sarah will pursue a Master of Arts in history at University College London, and a Master of Science in environment and development at the University of Edinburgh. Read this Maryland Today article to learn more about UMD's Marshall Scholarship honorees. Piotr Kosicki was awarded the Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. Research Fellowship from the JFK Library Foundation. The fellowship supports scholars in "the production of substantial works in either of the following areas: the foreign policy of the Kennedy Presidency, especially in the Western Hemisphere; or the Kennedy Administration's domestic policy, particularly with regard to racial justice or the conservation of natural resources. The successful candidate(s) will develop at least a portion of their original research using archival materials from the Kennedy Library." Tula Lock (B.A. 2026) received the Dean’s Senior Scholars Award. The College of Arts and Humanities grants Senior Scholars Awards to undergraduate students majoring in the Humanities who demonstrate distinguished academic performance and leadership qualities and a commitment to community involvement. Robyn Muncy was selected as one of five 2025-26 Distinguished Scholar-Teachers at the University of Maryland. The award honors faculty members who demonstrate outstanding scholarly achievement and outstanding accomplishments as teachers. Brooke Timmins (B.A. 2025) received the inaugural “Excelsior Scholar Honors” award in June 2025 while an intern for Robert Chiles on both the New York History journal and the annual New York State History Conference. Her internship was administered by the Department of History and supervised by Julie Taddeo. In recognition of her work, Chiles and the journal co-editors created an award for students who, at the undergraduate or graduate level, exhibit a consistent, long-term record of exemplary service to the field of New York history. Eleanor Vander Laan (HiLS Student) received the 2025–2026 Rodler-Wood Endowed Scholarship from the Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. The Rodler-Wood Scholarship provides $1,000 to support student success in their upcoming academic year. Selection is based on one or more of the following criteria: demonstrated financial need, academic interest in LGBTQ Studies, extracurricular activities on behalf of LGBTQ issues, and hardship based on sexual orientation. Eleanor was able to use the money to visit the University of Southern California ONE Archives to start the research that will be the basis of their master's thesis! Robert Chiles at the 2025-26 Faculty & Staff Convocation. Awards & Recognitions Sarah Cobau. Marjorie Antonio. Tula Lock and her honors thesis advisor, Shay Hazkani. Brooke Timmins alongside Robert Chiles and Brian Krist of the New York State Education Department. Jayson M. Porter. We are delighted to welcome two new additions to our faculty this year; Jayson M. Porter, who formally joined our faculty as an assistant professor after completing his postdoctoral fellowship last year, and Caroline Ritter, who joined the University of Maryland as an assistant professor in history and public policy in 2025. Continue reading for more information about Jayson and Caroline! Jayson Maurice Porter is an environmental writer and historian whose research focuses on the environmental histories of Mexico, the African Diaspora, food systems, agrochemicals, and environmental justice and injustice. His writing has been published in The Washington Post, Environmental Humanities, Distillations Magazine, Environment and Society, and more. He is currently working on a book manuscript with Duke University Press on the environmental history of the African Diaspora, violence, and environmental change in Guerrero, Mexico through oilseed crops such as cotton, sesame, and coconuts. As an environmental educator, his teaching specialties include environmental justice history, science and technologies studies of race and resistance, and Afro-Indigenous ecologies in Latin America and the tropics. He serves in multiple leadership roles, including editorial board member of NACLA and Plant Perspectives, Black and Indigenous Climate Faculty Fellow in the Indigenous Futures Lab, board member of Rutgers University’s Black Ecologies Lab, co-designer of the Chicago Teachers Union’s Environmental Justice Freedom School, and principal curator and director of the CEDAR Gallery. New Faculty Robyn Muncy at the 2025-26 Faculty & Staff Convocation. Faculty Moments Zachary Dorner in front of the old Governor’s Palace in Williamsburg, VA. Presentations, Media Features, and News Richard Bell made multiple media appearances this semester, including an interview with Boise State Public Radio discussing how the Underground Railroad acquired its name, and a feature in Smithsonian Magazine recounting the underappreciated true story of a Prussian military officer who helped train the Continental Army at Valley Forge. He also chose some of his favorite books on the American Revolution as a World War in an article published with Shepherd.com. Bell has also discussed his new book, The American Revolution and the Fate of the World, on multiple platforms, including WYPR’s On the Record, Washingtonian Magazine and the New York Post, as well as multiple podcasts including Revolution 250, Lincoln Square, and Think Back. In October, Sarah Cameron delivered the annual director's lecture at the University of Chicago's Center for East European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies. Her lecture was titled, "Elusive Water: The Life and Death of Central Asia's Aral Sea." Robert Chiles appeared on CBS Saturday Morning in July 2025 in a segment exploring the Roosevelt estate and Hyde Park, New York where President Franklin D. Roosevelt decided to pursue a third term. In September 2025, Zachary Dorner presented a new paper titled "Medicalizing the Bodies of Atlantic Seafarers at the Chatham Chest, 1704-1803" at the Omohundro Institute in Williamsburg, VA. The paper explores the centuries-long negotiation between ideals and logistics that shaped the process determining whether injured Royal Navy seamen would receive benefits, emphasizing the significance of surgeons for grouping some veterans as disabled, and thereby worthy of relief, as a matter of public policy. Saverio Giovacchini shared research from his book, The Celluloid Atlantic: Hollywood, Cinecittà, and the Making of the Cinema of the West, 1943–1973, for the University Libraries’ Speaking of Books Series. Giovacchini also organized a two-day conference, Contested Spaces: Aesthetics, History, and Politics Between Cinema and Architecture, sponsored by the Department of History, the Maya Brin Residency Program, and the Cinema and Media Studies Program. The conference took place on October 23-24, 2025, and initiated a dialogue between intellectual historians, scholars of film, and scholars and practitioners of design and the built environment. Jeffrey Herf (Professor Emeritus) was interviewed by Baltimore Public Radio for its "On the Radio" Program in a segment titled "Language is powerful: What Happens When the NEA Tries to Edit History for Students?" The program aired in September 2025. Madeline Hsu announced the launch of the Maryland’s Ethnic Foodways digital archive. The Center for Global Migration Studies developed a digital archive to house student projects from the Maryland's Ethnic Foodways course (co-taught by Madeline Hsu and Psyche Williams-Forson). The Omeka-based archive was launched in October 2025 with help from Paige Little, the Center’s Program Manager, Lily Rodriguez-Ahlstrom (HiLS Student), one of the Center’s Graduate Assistants, and Abigail Gosaye (History minor), the Center’s technology intern. An op-ed by Piotr Kosicki, "María Corina Machado’s Catholic Revolution," ran in Project Syndicate in December 2025. In January 2026, Project Syndicate ran another op-ed of Kosicki's, titled "Trump is Putting Venezulan Democracy on Hold." Paul Landau was reappointed as a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Johannesburg. Landau also appeared on the AFRIPOD podcast both as interviewer and interviewee. In episode 140, Landau was guest host and interviewed David William Cohen about Cohen’s new book, The Weight of Lufu: Essays on Busoga before 1900 (Menha Publishers, 2025). In Episode 142, Landau was interviewed and discussed his book, Spear: Mandela and the Revolutionaries (Ohio University Press, 2022). Listen to both episodes here: Episode 140 and Episode 142. Robyn Muncy and Sonya Michel (Professor Emerita) appeared in a new PBS documentary, "Caregiving" which premiered in June 2025. The documentary draws attention to the crisis that the US currently faces in providing care for children, the elderly, and the disabled. In connection to her Distinguished Scholar-Teacher Award, Robyn Muncy presented a public lecture titled “Government at the Grassroots: Feminists and the State Spark the Battered Women’s Movement, 1970s” in November 2025. In November 2025, Karin Rosemblatt participated in a conference celebrating the 30th anniversary of her groundbreaking coedited volume, Disciplina y desacato: Construcción de construcción de identidad en Chile. Siglos XIX y XX (Discipline and Disobedience: Construction of Identity in Chile. 19th and 20th Centuries.) The book, the first to deploy the category of gender in Chilean history, will be republished in 2026. The conference in Santiago will feature new work on gender and sexuality and reflect on the history of gender studies. Michael Ross brought his Constitutional History class to the Supreme Court to attend the Griswold Prize lecture delivered by Gerald Magliocca, hosted by Justice Sonia Sotomayor. David B. Sicilia (Professor Emeritus) was quoted in a New York Times article titled "Corporate America’s Newest Activist Investor: Donald Trump," published in August 2025. Julie Taddeo delivered the keynote lecture on “Period Drama TV, History and Presentism: Contested Histories in Netflix’s Bridgerton” for Neo-Historical Fiction at 2025: Prized Temporalities and Contested Progress, Free University of Berlin in June 2025. In August 2025, Taddeo contributed to The Conversation UK's "Jane Austen Fight Club," as part of a series on the 250th birthday of Britain's famous author, and she was interviewed by the UK's newspaper, The Independent, for an article on Americans' obsession with the long running Downton Abbey series and films. She presented a paper, “Thirty Years On: The Evolution of Mr. Darcy’s Wet Shirt Moment in Regency Period Dramas,” for Northeast Popular Culture Association (NEPCA) in October 2025. A longer version of this paper will be published as a chapter in the forthcoming Representing Bridgerton: Intersectional Perspectives of the Popular Culture Phenomenon, intended for publication with Routledge Advances in Popular Culture Series. As a part of the University of Maryland Libraries' Celebration of Jane Austen's 250th birthday, Taddeo presented a talk in November 2025 on "Darcymania and adapting Jane Austen's Regency heroes for 20th and 21st century TV and film." Peter Wien traveled to Baghdad in early November with a delegation representing TARII (The Academic Research Institute in Iraq) in a number of meetings and conversations related to the activities of the organization's research presence in Iraq. Peter currently serves as TARII's President. While there, he participated in a panel discussion on "Guardians of Memory: Artists, Historians, and Archivists" at the National Library and Archive of Iraq. The panelists highlighted the importance of archival expertise for the preservation of national heritage. After his stay in Iraq, Peter traveled to Cairo, Egypt, to give a keynote speech on "Fascism, Nazism, and the Arab World Reassessed" for the conference Arab-German Relations Through the Mirror of History organized by the German Oriental Institute in Beirut (OIB) and the Egyptian Society for Historical Studies (ESHS). Thomas Zeller was interviewed by the leading newspaper in Switzerland, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, in an article titled “Trump unterwirft die amerikanischen Museen (Trump is Subduing American Museums),” published in August 2025. He was also interviewed by the public radio station in Munich, Bayerischer Rundfunk (Bavarian Public Radio), in a segment titled “Wie Trump Kultur und Wissenschaft in den USA beschädigt (How Trump is Hurting Culture and Science in the USA),” which aired in July 2025. During the 2026 winter term, Zeller led a student group to Munich for his inaugural education abroad class "A Green Giant? Environmentalism and Technology in Germany, Today and Yesterday." Caroline Ritter. Caroline Ritter is a historian of modern imperial Britain and the British Empire whose research centers on modern Britain and its global relationships, with particular focus on decolonization, language, and media. She joined the University of Maryland in 2025 as an Assistant Professor of History and Public Policy, teaching for both the Department of History and the School of Public Policy. Her first book, Imperial Encore: The Cultural Project of the Late British Empire (University of California Press, 2021), examines British cultural relations in Africa during the twentieth century and traces the global footprint of British cultural imperialism through decolonization and its aftermath. It was shortlisted for the 2022 Stansky Book Prize in British Studies since 1800, awarded by the North American Conference on British Studies. Her current research focuses on British decolonization and contemporary global relationships, including a book project titled Language Lessons: The English Language Teaching Industry in Britain, which examines industries that grew around English-language teaching since 1945. Ritter received her B.A. from Swarthmore College and her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, and taught at Texas State University for ten years. Robyn Muncy and some attendees of her Distinguished-Scholar lecture. Michael Ross and his HIST454 class. Issue 6 | Volume 4 | 2015 Peter Wien at the National Library and Archive of Iraq. Recent Publications Michael Becker co-authored an article with Devin Leigh of UC Berkeley titled “Answering Equiano: An Enslaver’s Sketch of Igboland in an Age of Abolition,” which was published in the William and Mary Quarterly in October 2025. Richard Bell’s The American Revolution and the Fate of the World was published in November 2025 by Penguin/Riverhead Books. It has already received starred reviews from Publisher’s Weekly, Library Journal, and Kirkus Reviews. Bernard Dov Cooperman published articles in two separate books which he co-edited with European colleagues. “The Right to Exclude: the State and the Rise of Jewish Self-Government in Early Modern Italy” appeared in Jews and State Building: Early Modern Italy and Beyond (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2025), pp. 59–76. The second, “Imparare a governarsi da soli: l'evoluzione delle istituzioni politiche nella società ebraica della Roma moderna,” [Learning to Govern Themselves: Evolving Political Institutions in the Jewish Society of Early Modern Rome] appeared in Roma 1524: I Capitoli di Daniel da Pisa e la nascità di una nuova comunità ebraica (Rome: Giuntina, 2025), pp. 31–56. For an English translation, contact cooperma@umd.edu. The second edition of Madeline Hsu’s Asian American History: A Very Short Introduction from Oxford University Press is forthcoming 2026. Hsu’s Dreaming of Gold, Dreaming of Home: Transnationalism and Migration Between the United States and South China, 1882-1943 (Stanford, 2000) is now available as an e-book. Hsu also published an article, “The Third World Strikes and Asian American Studies as an Institutional and Intellectual Project” in ASIANetwork Exchange A Journal for Asian Studies in the Liberal Arts. Ahmet T. Karamustafa co-edited Mystical Landscapes in Medieval Persian Literature with Fatemeh Keshavarz and contributed an article in the book titled “Sharī‘a/Revealed Religion According to ‘Azīz-i Nasafī.” Piotr Kosicki published an article (co-authored with Sylwia Kuzma-Markowska, the Department of History’s former 2024-25 Fulbright Visiting Scholar) in Comparative Studies in Society and History titled "Brokering Right-to-Life: Poland and the Transnational Entanglements of Catholic Pro-Life Activism, from Santiago to Washington to Gdańsk, 1970s–1990s." Paul Landau contributed several chapters to Volume V Africa of the multi-volume work Global Secularity: A Sourcebook. The entire book was published December 2025, and is available open access here. Jayson M. Porter's new essay, "Mule Power: Unpacking Empires and Diaspora in Mexico and the United States," was published in English and Spanish with the Science History Institute in October 2025. Julie Taddeo published an essay on "Sexual Violence in Jilly Cooper's Rivals: Updating the Bonkbuster for a post-#MeToo Television Audience," in October 2025 for the Women’s Film and Television History Network. It is also posted on Critical Studies in Television's website. Thomas Zeller published a paper putting the recent crisis in the American environmental sciences in historical perspective: “’A dagger to the heart?’ Climate change and the environmental sciences.” The paper was part of a roundtable commissioned by the journal History of Science on “The Crisis in American Science” and is available via open access here. The roundtable found a wide echo in the media. A warm welcome to our new Fall 2025 Graduate Students! HUA's "A Christmas Carol" reading in December 2025. Undergraduate Multiple graduate students attended the "History and Me" Graduate Workshop Series featuring Stephen Duncan (Ph.D. 2014, Advisor: Saverio Giovacchini) in October. (Pictured from left to right, Leah Rasmussen, Anna Schetnikova, Allison Ruch, Stephen Duncan, Langxun Zhu, Emma Downing) Tobin Johnson's (Ph.D. Candidate, Advisor: Ahmet Karamustafa) paper, "The Meaning of Lesbian Sex in Twelfth-Century Satire: Khaqani's 'Number 351,'" was accepted for publication by the Journal of Middle East Women's Studies. Chloe Kauffman (Ph.D. Candidate, Advisor: Clare Lyons) was awarded a New York Public Library Short-Term Research Fellowship. Jamie Myre (HiLS Student, Advisor: Robyn Muncy) earned a prestigious Summer 2025 internship at the Smithsonian's Museum of African American History and Culture. Julia Preston (HiLS Student; Advisor: Richard Bell), recently published an article,”Weaving Gender: Men, Women, and the Mormon Home Manufacture Movement,” in the Journal of Mormon History. Anna Schetnikova (Ph.D. Student, Advisor: Janna Bianchini) presented a paper titled ""Female Concerns in Medieval Franciscan Preaching: Pregnancy and Child Loss in Miroir des bonnes femmes" at the 60th International Congress on Medieval Studies in May 2025 in Kalamazoo, MI. She also presented a paper titled "Adapting Classical Learning: Pagan Role Models for Christian Women in 13th-century Franciscan Preaching" at the International Medieval Congress in July 2025 in Leeds, UK. Stephanie Zager (HiLS Student; Advisor: Janna Bianchini) will present her paper titled "Pork, Policing, and Performance: Food as a Historiographical Lens on Converso Identity in Early Modern Spain" at the Association for Jewish Studies meeting in December 2025. Langxun Zhu (M.A. Student, Advisor: Antoine Borrut) attended the 27th International Conference of History of Science & Technology (ICHST) online and made a report titled "Planet-Comet War: Astrological Conspiracy in the Abdication of Abbas the Great" in June 2025. Current students It was a busy semester for the History Undergraduate Association (HUA)! This fall, HUA hosted events such as their History Trivia Night, multiple social hours, an alumni panel, their Wikipedia Speedrun, and the annual reading of scenes from Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” with Robert Chiles. HUA also welcomed four new officers this year: Alan Rosales-Morales, Soraya Nath, Naomi Richardson, and Sarah Williams. Our undergraduates held exciting internships with organizations such as: The Jewish Democratic Council of America The Heritage Series The State's Attorney of Baltimore County The U.S. Capitol Historical Society The National Archives, Office of Equal Employment Opportunity HUA's social hour in September 2025. graduate Julia Preston and a copy of her publication. Nathan and Jeanette Miller Center for Historical Studies Thomas Cadogan (Advisor: Antoine Borrut) “Islamic Apocalyptic: Its Roots, Characteristics and Early History." Scott Dranginis (Advisor: Patrick Chung) “Competing Visions in GHQ: New Dealers, Anti-Communists, and the Political Struggles in Occupied Japan.” Paul Gould (Advisor: Holly Brewer) “Jurisdictions of Power: The Jury in Colonial-Era Maryland." Dissertation Defenses Mikol Bailey (Advisor: Marsha Rozenblit) “A Legacy of Integration: Polish Jews’ Relations with their Neighbors in the Lublin Castle Court Records, 1586–1614." Robert Elias (Advisor: Holly Brewer) “‘Wee Are Nott Men of Estates Good Enough to Undertake Such a Buisnesse’: The Influence of the English Empire on Seventeenth Century Maryland Slave Laws." Mischa Wolfinger (Advisor: Robyn Muncy) “Respectability, Legitimacy, and Identity: Access to Aid in the Mid-20th Century American Trans Community." Thesis Defenses Jessica Wicks-Allen, courtesy of Women Also Know History. Alumni News Robert D. Bland (Ph.D. 2017, Advisor: Leslie Rowland) has published his first book, Requiem for Reconstruction: Black Countermemory and the Legacy of the Lowcountry's Lost Political Generation (University of North Carolina Press, 2026). Bland is an Assistant Professor of History and Africana Studies at the University of Tennessee. A brief description of Bland's book is available here. Shawn Callahan (Ph.D. 2023, Advisors: Patrick Chung & Jon Sumida), is the Director of the Marine Corps' History Division. In honor of the Corps' 250th birthday, the Corps' History Division published Semper Fidelis: 250 Years of US Marine Corps Honor, Courage and Commitment. Maryland Today said of the new publication, "Callahan preserves [The Marine Corps] past and promotes its story, sharing information with government officials and scholars and serving as the commandant’s primary adviser on historical matters." Allison S. Finkelstein (Ph.D. 2015, Advisor: Saverio Giovacchini) published her book, A Tomb in the Heart of the Nation: The Origins and Creation of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, in digital open-access format with the Arlington National Military Cemeteries (ANMC). The publication is publicly available through the Arlington National Cemetery website. In July 2025, Rachel Jessee (B.A. 2022) gave an interview with Jessica Weiss in ARHU about how her history degree has helped shape her career on Capitol Hill. She credits Katarina Keane, her senior thesis advisor, with helping her to see the many different ways you can use a history degree. Samuel Miner (Ph.D. 2021, Advisor: Jeffrey Herf) wrote an article for the American Historical Association's Perspectives on History magazine titled "The End of an Era? German Research into Federal Ministries’ Nazi Pasts." Justin Shapiro (Ph.D. 2020, Advisor: Thomas Zeller) has published his book, The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative: Vision for Twenty-First-Century Science (University Press of Mississippi, 2025). The book examines the history of the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI), which was a ten-year, $500 million research program to investigate the impacts of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster on the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem. Shapiro is currently a postdoctoral associate in climate pedagogy at Duke University. Jonathan A. White (M.A. 2003, Ph.D. 2008), and his co-author Lucas Morel, published an anthology in October 2025 titled Measuring the Man: The Writings of Frederick Douglass on Abraham Lincoln. The book reframes the relationship between Lincoln and Douglass, telling a new story and adding fresh nuance to their relationship. Read more about White and Morel's book in Maryland Today. An article by Jessica Wicks-Allen (Ph.D. 2022; advisor: Leslie Rowland) appeared in the September 2025 issue of the Journal of American History. The title is "Child Apprenticeship and Black Maternal Authority following the Civil War." Wicks-Allen is an assistant professor at Arizona State University. Rachel Jessee in front of the US Capitol Building, courtesy of the College of Arts and Humanities. Shawn Callahan in the US Marine Corps’ official archives, courtesy of Maryland Today. Nathan and Jeanette Miller CenteR For Historical Studies CenteR foR Global Migration Studies This semester, The Center for Global Migration Studies (CGMS) was pleased to host events involving UMD faculty, off-campus scholars, and student projects. In September, it hosted a brown bag discussion with Gerson Rosales, Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of History currently working on a manuscript, ""Yo canto a mi pueblo: Salvadoran Migration, Activism, and Diaspora in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1900-1992. In October, CGMS launched the Maryland's Ethnic Foodways Digital Archive, an Omeka-based platform designed to house undergraduate digital projects from Madeline Hsu and Psyche Williams-Forson's (AMST) course, Maryland's Ethnic Foodways. In conjunction with UMD's First Year Book selection, The Constitution of the United States: Smithsonian Edition, CGMS and The Nathan and Jeanette Miller Center for Historical Studies hosted a panel discussion in November centered around the 14th Amendment: “Birthright Citizenship: Who Benefits?” The discussion featured three scholars: Heather R. Lee (UNC Chapel Hill), Maureen Sweeney (UMD Carey Law), and Marla Ramirez (UW Madison).   The Nathan and Jeanette Miller Center for Historical Studies (The Miller Center) also had a busy semester and joined in discussion with many on- and off-campus guests. In September, it welcomed Eva Payne from the University of Mississippi for a talk titled "Empire of Purity: The History of Americans' Global War on Prostitution." In October, it welcomed Natalia Shlikhta, a non-resident visiting Ukraine Fellow for a virtual event titled "The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and Soviet Religious 'Reunification,'" as well as Sarah Richardson of Harvard University for a talk titled "Sex and the QT Interval." John Sturc (Ph.D. Student, Advisor: David Sicilia), led a discussion in November titled "The Technocratic Project: The 1970s Movement to Restrain the Power of Big Business and Government." Finally, in December, David Petruccelli of Dartmouth College visited for an event titled "The 1968 Vienna Pornography Trial & Austrian Obscenity Laws." Our Centers Paige Little (B.A. 2022) is the new manager of the Department of History’s digital content (including this newsletter!), website, and social media pages. The department has a couple of new accounts, so please give us a follow to stay updated on our news, events, publications, and more throughout the year! Instagram: @umdhistory Facebook: UMD Department of History Bluesky: @umdhistory.bsky.social Follow US on social media!