Student Directory

BANTON
Caree Banton is a Ph.D. candidate currently working with Dr. Richard Blackett. She studies the abolitionist, anti-slavery and colonization movements of the 19th century. She is interested in the significance of these movements to the Caribbean, the African Diaspora and the larger Atlantic World. Caree is the recipient of a 2012-2013 Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities Graduate Student Fellowship in conjunction with the Sawyer Seminar entitled “The Age of Emancipation: Black Freedom in the Atlantic World.” Caree received the Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship to do a yearlong research in Ghana, Africa while serving as a Rotary Ambassador 2011-2012. She also received the Vanderbilt University Albert H. Gordon Fellowship for 2010-11. The fellowship seeks to use scholars and their research as a medium to further international understanding and foster goodwill among different nations. Her dissertation explores migration from the West Indies (particularly Barbados) to Africa (particularly Liberia) and the implications of this to experiences of freedom, citizenship and black nation-building. She can be contacted at caree.a.banton@vanderbilt.edu

BATES
Jason Bates is a third year graduate student interested in the legal and cultural history of race in the United States. His dissertation will explore the criminalization of narcotics possession and sales in the turn-of-the-twentieth-century U.S., with particular emphasis on policymakers' use of race to secure public support for the new criminal regime. He works with Professors Gary Gerstle and Dan Sharfstein. Jason earned his B.A. in English literature and religious studies from the University of California, Berkeley (2002), his J.D. from Harvard Law School (2005), and his M.A. in history from Vanderbilt (2012). He can be reached at jason.l.bates@vanderbilt.edu.

BORTZ
Sean Bortz is a second year graduate student of early modern England with an emphasis on politics and religion. He received his B.A. from Norwich University (1996), an M.S.Ed from the University of Kentucky (2005) and an M.T.S. from Vanderbilt Divinity School (2009). Sean explores the issues of religious tension and political propaganda and with an emphasis on how anti-Semitism plays a role in political discourse. He is studying with Dr. Peter Lake and Dr. Paul Lim. He can be reached at sean.b.bortz@vanderbilt.edu.

BRIGNAC
Kelly Brignac is a first year graduate student studying the French Atlantic World of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, specifically how residents of France interpreted French Creole cultures of the Americas. She works with Dr. Lauren Clay, Dr. Jane Landers, and Dr. Dan Usner. Kelly earned her B.A. in History from Millsaps College in Jackson, MS. She is a winner of the 2012 North American Conference on British Studies Undergraduate Essay Contest for her essay "Strength Through Unity: Cotton Mather's Crusade for Puritan Solidarity." She can be reached at kelly.a.brignac@vanderbilt.edu.

BROWN
Marjorie Denise completed her B.A. in history from the University of Houston-- Honor’s College and received her Master’s in history from the University of Houston, where she wrote her master’s thesis on the commercialization of Texas, which dealt with the interstate slave trade between Galveston and New Orleans. Her research interests at Vanderbilt have dealt with the Tennessee Colonization Society, slavery in colonial New York, and gender. Her dissertation research focuses on the international slave trade in the Gulf Coast Region and is being directed by her advisor, Dr. Richard Blackett. Her email address is marjorie.d.brown@vanderbilt.edu.

BRUNO
Dean Bruno is a Ph.D. candidate in US History with a focus on the early American republic, borderlands, environmental, and American Indian history. Under the direction of Dan Usner, his dissertation investigates the cycles of dispossession, and the contested layers of memory and meaning, for the landscape of what is now the former Seneca Army Depot in upstate New York. Dean participated in the Newberry Library Consortium in American Indian Studies (NCAIS) graduate student workshop -“Cartography and Spatial Analysis in American Indian Studies.” He also represented Vanderbilt at the NCAIS 2012 Summer Institute – “Territory, Commemoration, and Monument: Indigenous and Settler Histories of Place and Power.” To assist in dissertation research, he received a Herbert and Blanche Henry Weaver Summer Research Award, and support from the William Campbell Binkley Graduate Education Research Fund. Dean presented his work at the North Carolina State Graduate Student Conference (2009), and served as the keynote speaker for the dedication of a historic marker at Sampson State Park in Seneca County, NY (2012). He will deliver a paper at the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic annual conference (2013). Dean earned his BS from Cornell University, MBA from Wake Forest University, and MA from NC State University. He can be reached at d.bruno@vanderbilt.edu

burch

BURCH
Jessica Burch is a fourth year graduate student in the field of U.S. history, working with Dr. Sarah Igo. She is particularly interested in 20th century American consumer culture, urban history and business history. She received her B.A. in Organizational Studies from Pitzer College (2000) and M.A. in Social Sciences/History from the University of Chicago (2007). She can be reached at jessica.k.burch@vanderbilt.edu.

CAMPBELL
Courtney J. Campbell is a Ph.D. candidate in Latin American History, with a focus on Modern Brazil. Her dissertation, “Inside Out: Region, Nation and Globalization in the Brazilian Northeast (1940-1968)," focuses on international events that generated representations and transformations of regional identity in the Brazilian Northeast. Courtney has been invited to participate in the early career workshop 'Rethinking Sports in Latin America' hosted by Emory University, which includes presenting new research, receiving feedback from peers and senior scholars, and revising for publication in an edited volume or special journal issue. Courtney received the IIE/Mellon Graduate Fellowship (funded by the Mellon Foundation to replace the Fulbright-Hays DDRA fellowship), funding her research in several cities of Brazil in 2012. Her paper “Inside Out: Intellectual Views on Northeastern Brazilian Regional Identity and Transnational Change, 1926-1952” won the 2011 Ralph Lee Woodward Jr. Prize from the Latin American and Caribbean Section of the Southern Historical Association. In addition to the IIE Graduate Fellowship, Courtney has received a FIPSE-CAPES grant, the College of Arts and Sciences Summer Research Award, and two Tinker Field Research Grants to carry out research in Brazil. She has presented her work at several venues including the Casa de Oswaldo Cruz in Rio de Janeiro and the meetings of the Associação Nacional de Pós-Graduação e Pesquisa em Ciências Sociais in Águas de Lindóia, the Simpósio Nacional de História Cultural in Teresina, the Brazilian Studies Association X and XI in Brasília and Urbana-Champaign, and the Southeastern Council of Latin American Studies in New Orleans. Her paper "'Tinha apenas em vista chamar a atenção': Joaquim Nabuco, abolicionistas britânicos e o caso de Morro Velho" appeared in the edited collection Conferências sobre Joaquim Nabuco: Joaquim Nabuco em Wisconsin published by Bem-te-vi publishers in 2010. Courtney served as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Paraguayan Chaco and completed her Master's degree in Education at the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco in Brazil, where her research centered on the concept of Linguistic Imperialism and the history of the teaching of English in the city of Recife. She has two B.A.s in French and in Spanish/International Studies from the University of Michigan-Flint. Her adviser at Vanderbilt is Dr. Marshall C. Eakin and in Brazil she works with Dr. Marcos Chor Maio at the Casa de Oswaldo Cruz. You can reach Courtney at courtney.j.campbell.1@vanderbilt.edu and can find her CV at http://vanderbilt.academia.edu/CourtneyJCampbell .

CHAVEZ
Tizoc Chavez is a third year graduate student interested in U.S. diplomatic history, particularly the history of U.S.-Middle East relations. Other research interests include U.S. political history and international relations. Tizoc received his B.A. in history from California State University, Stanislaus in 2008. His advisor is Dr. Thomas A. Schwartz. He can be reached at tizoc.v.chavez@vanderbilt.edu .

CHRESFIELD
Michell Chresfield is a third year graduate student in twentieth century American history, working with Dr. Sarah Igo. Her major areas of interest are the black family and the depiction of black women, gender and sexuality in popular culture. Michell received her B.A. in American Studies from the University of Notre Dame in 2008. She can be reached at michell.chresfield@vanderbilt.edu.

DEWAAL
Jeremy DeWaal is a fifth year student studying Modern Germany under Dr. Helmut Walser Smith. His particular interests are in localism, regionalism, and Heimat in the modern period. His dissertation examines a broad turn to Heimat sentiment in the immediate postwar period–a phenomenon which he titles the "Second Heimat Movement." Jeremy received his BA in 2006 from the University of Utah in History and German. During 2006-2007 he did a Fulbright in Cologne, Germany, where he studied at the University of Cologne and taught English at the Berufskolleg Oberberg. Jeremy completed his second year of graduate course work in an exchange at the Freie Universität Berlin. Jeremy recently was awarded the Simpson Award for the best paper in European History at the Southern Historical Association annual meeting in 2010 for his study of the "Re-invention of tradition" in Cologne Carnival. Most recently he has received a Fulbright Research Grant to study German history, as well as a DAAD Research Grant. This is his second Fulbright Scholarship. Jeremy can be reached at jeremy.j.dewaal@vanderbilt.edu

DODD
Jenifer Dodd is a fourth year graduate student in twentieth century American history and is working with Dr. Sarah Igo. Her major areas of interest are the social sciences and medical history, and their intersection with popular culture. Previous research foci have included the popular and medical culture surrounding psychedelic drugs in America, as well as the influence of psychiatry on gender roles throughout the first half of the twentieth century. Jenifer received her B.A. in history from the University of Texas at Austin in 2009. She can be reached at jenifer.dodd@vanderbilt.edu.

ELRICK

Joanna is an ABD student who focuses on the cultural and religious history of the Iberian Atlantic World. She earned her B.A. with a double major in English and History from Western Kentucky University in 2006 and her M.A. in History from Vanderbilt in 2009. She is currently in the research phase of her dissertation, tentatively titled “Black Religions with White Faces: the Creolization of Religious Belief and Cultural Practice in Colonial Brazil, Angola and Cuba, 1600-1800.” Her work focuses on the religious, ideological, and cultural influences African-descended peoples had on their white neighbors in the slave societies of Brazil, Cuba and Angola. Joanna will present a paper, "Magical Exchanges: the African contribution to popular religion in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil, 1697-1752 " at the "Enslavement, Identity and Cross-Cultural Exchange" conference at the Wilberforce Institute for the study of Slavery and Emancipation, University of Hull, UK, to take place January 2012. She was awarded a bursary by the Wilberforce Institute to attend this conference. Joanna has presented her research at national and international conferences including the CERLAC Graduate Student Research conference (York University, Toronto, 2008) “Charting New Courses in the Study of Slavery and Emancipation” (University of Southern Mississippi, 2010), the Brazilian Studies Association (Brasília, 2010) and the Latin American Studies Association (Toronto, 2010).
Joanna’s work has been supported by numerous fellowships and grants. Joanna has been awarded a 2012 Cuban Heritage Collection Research Fellowship in support of her research project, “Religion, Race and Culture in Colonial Cuba, Angola, and Brazil.” She has been awarded the Social Science Research Council International Dissertation Research Fellowship to perform archival research in Portugal and Spain during the 2010-2011 academic year. She is also the recipient of two Foreign Languages and Area Studies (FLAS) awards, a summer research grant from Harvard University’s Atlantic World Seminar, a College of Arts and Sciences Summer Research Award, the Lydia Cabrera-Council of Latin American History Award, an Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship at the Huntington Library, a FIPSE-CAPES award, and a John Carter Brown Library fellowship. Joanna has conducted archival research in Cuba, Brazil, Portugal, Spain, and the United States. She works under the direction of Dr. Jane Landers, and can be contacted via email at joanna.k.elrick@vanderbilt.edu

EVERETT
Chris Everett is an ABD student in U.S. History. He is the author, or co-author, of several essays and articles, including “‘They Shall be Slaves for their Lives’: Indian Slavery in Colonial Virginia,” in Alan Gallay, ed., Indian Slavery in Colonial America (University of Nebraska Press, 2009). For the past eight he years has served as a consultant for non-federally registered tribes. His adviser is Dr. Daniel Usner. He can be reaches at cseme4@yahoo.com .

GAJEWSKI
Paula Gajewski (BA, History and BS, Finance, Florida State University, 2000; MBA, Moore School, University of South Carolina, 2002; MA, History, Vanderbilt, 2005) studies the history of American business. Her dissertation, "Financial Regulation, the New York Stock Exchange, and the Transformation of Retirement in America," explores the connections between commission rate deregulation at the NYSE in 1975, an event known as "May Day," and the passage of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). This unique historical moment helps reveal the increasingly important role of securities markets and institutional investing in the evolution of American retirement practices. Paula will present a paper, "Public Policies for Private Capital: How Labor’s Pensions became Wall Street’s Retirement Plans,” at a conference at The Huntington, "Capitalizing on Finance: New Directions in the History of Capitalism," to take place April 13, 2013. Paula was awarded the Business History Conference's 2008 Kerr Prize and was a 2010 Helguera Fellow. Paula can be reached at paula.k.gajewski@vanderbilt.edu; her advisor is Dr. Gary Gerstle.

GENKINS
Daniel Genkins is a second year graduate student in the field of Early Modern Latin American and Atlantic history. He received a B.S. in economics from Duke University in 2009 and an M.A. in history from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in 2011. His M.A. thesis was titled “Commercial Paradigms in the Revolutionary Atlantic: An Interimperial Comparative Analysis of Three Port Cities during the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries.” Daniel is studying with Professor Jane Landers. He can be reached at daniel.n.genkins@vanderbilt.edu.

HANSEN
Jon Hansen is a Ph.D. candidate with an interest in transnational religious and humanitarian movements of the twentieth century. His dissertation explores the role of American missionaries and NGOs in postcolonial Kenya. Dr. Dennis C. Dickerson is his faculty advisor. Jon can be reached at jonathan.hansen@vanderbilt.edu

HARDIN
William Fernandez Hardin is a Ph.D. candidate working on his dissertation entitled Law and the Lash: Litigating Slavery and Freedom in Virginia. His research interests include the legal history of slavery, the colonial and antebellum U.S. south, and the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). He is a graduate of American University's Washington College of Law and a member of the Tennessee Bar. He is the recipient of Vanderbilt University’s Herbert and Blanche Henry Weaver Research Fellowship and The William Campbell Binkely Fellowship. In 2009, he was awarded the Andrew W. Mellon Research Fellowship by the Virginia Historical Society. In the same year, he was also awarded a grant by the Folger Institute’s Center for the History of British Political Thought to participate in a six week seminar entitled “Changing Conceptions of Property in the Seventeenth Century”. In 2010, Mr. Hardin was awarded a Gilder Lehrman Fellowship by the John D. Rockefeller Jr., Library of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. In 2011, he was awarded the Sage Helguerra Award for dissertation completion. Mr. Hardin is from Newport News, Virginia and graduated with distinction from the University of Virginia (B.A., English literature). Professor Richard Blackett is his faculty advisor. His email address is william.f.hardin@vanderbilt.edu.

HARRISON
Steve Harrison is a Ph.D. candidate working with Dr. Thomas A. Schwartz on Diplomatic History. He completed his MA from NC State University. His focus is on US-China relations during the 1960's and 70's. His email address is stephenharrison@hotmail.com.

HAYDEN
Erica Rhodes Hayden received her BA in History and Information Technology from Juniata College in 2007 and her MA in History from Vanderbilt University in 2009. She is a Ph.D. candidate studying nineteenth-century American social history, with a special interest in social attitudes on criminal punishment during the antebellum era. Currently, she is writing her dissertation entitled “Plunged into a vortex of iniquity”: Female Criminality and Punishment in Pennsylvania, 1820-1860." Her article, “‘She Keeps the Place in Continual Excitement:’ Female Inmates’ reactions to incarceration in Antebellum Pennsylvania’s Prisons,” has been published in Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies, Vol. 80, Winter 2013, Number 1, pp. 51-84. She has presented work at the University of Alabama Graduate Student Conference on Power and Struggle in 2008, the Mid America Conference on History in 2009, the inaugural conference of The Society of Nineteenth Century Americanists in May 2010, the Society for Interdisciplinary Study of Social Imagery annual conference in 2011, Experiencing Prison: The Second Global Conference of Inter-Disciplinary.net in May 2011 in Warsaw, Poland, and the 2011 annual conference of the Association of British American Nineteenth Century Historians (BrANCH) in Cambridge, England. She was awarded the Social Science Dissertation Fellowship for the 2012-2013 academic year from the College of Arts and Science, Vanderbilt University. She received a one month Library Resident Research Fellowship at the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia for the 2010-2011 academic year. She has previously conducted research at the Pennsylvania State Archives, the Library Company of Philadelphia, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and the Philadelphia City Archives in 2008 and 2009. Her adviser is Dr. Richard Blackett. She can be reached at erica.m.rhodes@vanderbilt.edu.

HUBBARD
Justin Hubbard is a first-year graduate student in twentieth-century US history interested in medical history, particularly the relationships between public health initiatives and industrial development in the New South. His previous work includes his master's thesis, titled "The Moral Economy of the Housing Sanitarian Crowd: Crime, Disease, and Urban Renewal in Richmond, VA, 1953-1964". He earned a BA in history from the University of Virginia in 2008 and an MA in American history from Temple University in 2012. He can be reached at justin.w.hubbard@vanderbilt.edu .

INGWERSEN
Lance Ingwersen is a third year student in the Latin American history program, with a focus on modern Mexico. Lance Ingwersen has been awarded a Fulbright-García Robles Grant to conduct dissertation research in Mexico during the 2013-14 academic year. His research examines associative life, civil society, and the public sphere in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Mexico. In 2012, Lance received the James R. Scobie Award from the Conference on Latin American History and a Summer Research Award from the College of Liberal Arts and Science to support pre-dissertation research. His advisor is Dr. Edward Wright-Rios. Lance earned his B.A. in Latin American Studies at Rhodes College in 2003 and his M.A. in Latin American history from Arizona State University in 2010. His M.A. thesis was titled "Beggars, Vagrants, and the Asilo Particular de Mendigos in Mexico City, 1879-1939." Feel free to contact him at lance.ingwersen@vanderbilt.edu.

JACOBS
Alexander Jacobs studies twentieth century U.S. intellectual and political history. He received a BA in history and philosophy from the University of Alaska Anchorage and a MA in history from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. He works with Professor Gary Gerstle, and can be reached at alexander.i.jacobs@vanderbilt.edu .

back

KOLB
Frances Kolb is a fifth year graduate student in the Vanderbilt History Department. She received her B.A. in History from Texas A&M University in 2007. Her adviser is Dr. Daniel Usner. She is studying Early American History, with fields also in Atlantic World Slave Studies and French and Spanish Borderlands. Her dissertation is tentatively entitled “Contesting Borderlands: Policy and Practice in Spanish Louisiana, 1765-1800.” Her dissertation examines the implications of the gap between Spanish defense policy and the practice in Spanish Louisiana for the contest for the borderlands of the Lower Mississippi Valley. She has received a one-month PEAES fellowship at the Library Company of Philadelphia, a one-month fellowship at the David Library of the American Revolution, and an NCIAS graduate student fellowship at the Newberry Library. Her email address is frances.b.kolb@vanderbilt.edu.

KOSTIW
Nicolette Kostiw is a Ph.D. candidate in Latin American History, with a focus on Modern Brazil. Her dissertation, "A Lost Generation: The Tutelage of Minors, Slavery, and the Black Family in Rio de Janeiro," has been awarded the 2012 Ida B. Wells Graduate prize from the Coordinating Council for Women in History. She is a NSEP/IIE Boren Fellow for the 2010-2011 academic year and is currently conducting dissertation research in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She is also the recipient of a James and Sylvia Thayer Short-Term Research Fellowship and will conduct research at UCLA's Special Collections in January 2012. Her research centers on Brazil's transition from the slavery era through the Old Republic (approx. 1870-1932). Specifically, she is interested in the ways in which former slaves and their descendants navigated their post-abolition role in society. Within this, she focuses on the development of modern Brazilian race relations, social mobility and education. Nicolette has presented work at the Southeastern Council of Latin American Studies (SECOLAS) in New Orleans (2009), the Graduate Association of African American History (GAAAH) conference in Memphis (2009) and the Brazilian Studies Association (BRASA) in Brasília, Brazil (2010). Before becoming enamored with Brazil, Nicolette worked as a Spanish instructor at West Virginia University where she received her M.A. in Spanish, as well as her double B.A. in History and Spanish. Her advisor is Dr. Marshall Eakin and she can be reached at nicolette.m.wilhide@vanderbilt.edu.

KOUL
Ashish Koul is a student of modern South Asian history, with a focus on the history of politics, religion and gender in late nineteenth-early twentieth century colonial north India. She is also interested in issues related to the Partition of India, democracy and political representation, international and intra-national migration and refugee rehabilitation. She has been awarded the Social Science Research Council International Dissertation Research Fellowship for 2013-14. She has completed her B.A. from Delhi University and M. A. from Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, India. She is working with Prof. Samira Sheikh. Ashish can be reached at ashish.koul@vanderbilt.edu.

LACKNEY
Lisa Lackney is a second year student studying modern Japanese cultural history. She received a M.A. (2010) from the University of Akron; her thesis was entitled "From Nostalgia to Cruelty: Changing Stories of Love, Violence, and Masculinity in Postwar Japanese Samurai Films." She has also presented talks on Visual Kei music and Boys' Love manga. Lisa is studying with Dr. Yoshikuni Igarashi, as well as Dr. Gerald Figal. She can be reached at lisa.lackney@hotmail.com .

LAZO
Kate Lazo is a first year graduate student interested in early modern England, studying with Dr. Peter Lake. The intersection of religion, politics and printed materials are what intrigue her. She earned her B.A. (with Honors) and M.A. in history from Stanford University, where she presented a thesis entitled "Propaganda, Polemic, and Powder: Portrayals of the Gunpowder Plot in 17th Century England". Kate can be reached at: katherine.g.lazo@vanderbilt.edu.

LEBLANC
Zoe LeBlanc is a second year graduate student interested in U.S. and British diplomatic history, particularly the history of Anglo-American foreign policy in the Middle East. Other research interests include modern Middle Eastern history and U.S. political history. Zoe received her Honours B.A. in history from the University of Toronto in 2010. Her advisor is Dr. Thomas A. Schwartz. She can be reached at zoe.leblanc@vanderbilt.edu.

LIPSON
Steven J. Lipson is a second year graduate student focusing on 20th century U.S. social history. Particular interests include African-American history, religious and labor history, and the history of education. Steve earned a B.A. in history and government from the College of William and Mary. After working at an education policy research organization in Washington, DC, he enrolled in a master's program in U.S. history at the Catholic University of America. Steve chose to investigate for his thesis African-American education in DC during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Dr. Gary Gerstle is his advisor. Steve can be reached at sjlips@yahoo.com.

MAPES
Christopher Mapes is a second year graduate student in the field of Modern European History. He primarily studies nineteenth-century German art and literature. He finds the creation of classifications for epochs and movements particularly interesting. He received his B.A. in History with a minor in German Language from LSU in 2009 and M.A. from the University of Alabama in 2011. Christopher's advisor is Dr. Helmut Walser-Smith and can be reached at christopher.d.mapes@vanderbilt.edu.

back MARTIN
Miriam is a doctoral candidate studying Latin America and the Atlantic World with a focus on race, rebellion and revolution. Her dissertation titled "Black Auxiliary Forces in the Eighteenth Century Atlantic World" focuses on black militias from the Saint Domingue Rebellion and their entrance into Central America. Miriam has presented her work at several conferences including the American Historical Association in January 2012, the Harriet Tubman Summer Institute in August 2011, and the Consortium on Revolutionary Era in March 2011. She has conducted research at Archivo General de CentroAmerica in Guatemala, London's National Archives, Spain's archives in Simancas and Seville and the Newberry Library archives in Chicago. She has received the HASTAC Scholar Award for 2012/13 through the Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities, Newberrry Short Term Fellowship (2012), Vanderbilt's Summer Research Award (2012), Weaver Research Fellowship (2011), Harvard University’s Atlantic World Summer research grant (2010) and the Title VI Foreign Language Area Study Fellowship for Portuguese (2009). Miriam received her BA from David Lipscomb University in Comparative Literature, and her MA from St. John's College in Annapolis, MD. She is working with Dr. Jane Landers and can be reached at miriam.r.martin@vanderbilt.edu.

MATHEUSZIK
Deanna Matheuszik studies the history of modern Britain, with a focus on gender and religion in the nineteenth century. She is currently writing her dissertation, tentatively titled "The Angel Syndrome: Elizabeth Fry and the Role of Gender, Religion and Class in Negotiating Public and Private Spheres," which examines how intersections of gender and religion could attenuate separate sphere ideology—the notion that the public sphere of politics, work, and association was the province of men while women were to be the "angels of the home"—by opening up spaces in the public sphere in which women could be active, and carve out a vocation for themselves. Her research for this analysis centers on Elizabeth Fry (1780-1845), a Quaker minister and prison reform activist who came to be known as the "angel of the prisons." Deanna’s dissertation is directed by Dr. James Epstein; her other dissertation committee members are Professors Michael Bess, Carolyn Dever, Helmut Smith, and Arleen Tuchman. She can be reached at deanna.l.matheuszik@vanderbilt.edu .

MAZURSKA
Joanna Mazurska is a Ph.D. candidate in Modern European History, and the George J. Graham Jr. Fellow at the Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities. Her dissertation, entitled Making Sense of Czesław Miłosz: A Poet’s Formative Dialogue with his Transnational Audiences, explores the multi-channeled dialogue between Czesław Miłosz, a Polish Nobel laureate, and his transnational audiences. Joanna's other research interests include the 20th century trajectories of the Central-East European intellectuals in exile, and the contemporary Russian intelligentsia. Joanna has earned two M.A. degrees: in Political Science from the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Poland (2007), and in History from Vanderbilt (2009). Her master's thesis won the 2007 Archives of Polish Emigration Prize. Joanna has been awarded a Vanderbilt Summer Research Award (2010), a Max Kade Center Research Grant (2011), and two Binkley-Weaver travel grants (2009, 2011). She is also a recipient of The National Program for Development of the Humanities Grant from the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education (2011). She will be a Visiting Fellow at the Remarque Institute at New York University Fall 2012. Joanna has conducted her research, among other places, in the Beinecke Library (Yale), the Archives of Polish Opposition (Poland), the Czartoryski Archives (Poland), and the "Kultura" Archives (France). Joanna has presented her work at several conferences: “The Image of the Outsider” through the Society for the Interdisciplinary Study of Social Imagery, “History Conference on Power and Struggle” at the University of Alabama, “Fifth International and Interdisciplinary Conference Alexander von Humboldt: Travels Between Europe and the Americas” at Freie Universität, "Conference Transnationalism and Visual Culture in Britain: Émigrés and Migrants 1933 to 1956" at Northumbria University, and "Southern Conference on Slavic Studies." Joanna further nourishes her love for litearture and history by serving as a Consultant for the Institute for the Documentation and Studies on Polish Literature (Poland).

She is studying under Professors Michael Bess, Helmut Smith, and Frank Wcislo. Joanna can be reached at: joanna.m.mazurska@vanderbilt.edu

MOSHER
Shawn Mosher is an ABD student concentrating on American slavery, abolition, black emigration, slave narratives, and sociohistorical constructions of race. A graduate of Bryan College, Baylor University, and Dallas Theological Seminary, he studies under the supervision of Dr. Richard Blackett. He can be reached at s.mosher@vanderbilt.edu .

MURRELL
William Murrell is a first year graduate student studying medieval Islamic history. He is particularly interested in cultural interaction and intellectual exchange in Frankish Northern Syria in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. William received a B.A. in French and History from Lipscomb University in 2009 and an MSt in Medieval History from the University of Oxford (University College) in 2011. He is studying with Dr. David Wasserstein and Dr. Leor Halevi. He can be reached at williamsmurrell@gmail.com.

MUTCHNICK
Sonya Mutchnick studies the religious and intellectual history of the classical Islamic world under Dr. Leor Halevi. In her dissertation, “Making the Body Islamic: The ‘Customs of Fitra’ and Religious Differentiation in the Formative Period”, she explores early Muslims’ efforts to define the body’s place in religion and society, tracing the construction of a recognizably Muslim body via practices such as circumcision and depilation, legal debates over styles of grooming and bodily adornment, sartorial laws, and physical descriptions of Muhammad and other holy figures. She is particularly interested in the roles which this contested Muslim body played in questions of communal differentiation, gender boundaries, social practice, and conceptions of human nature and sacred history.

Sonya graduated magna cum laude from the College of William and Mary in 2009 with a B.A. in Medieval and Renaissance Studies. Her broader research and teaching interests include early and classical Islam, the medieval Mediterranean, and the history of Judaism in the Near East and medieval Europe. You can email her at sonya.l.mutchnick@vanderbilt.edu .

NELSON
Nichole Nelson is a first-year graduate student interested in twentieth-century American history with a focus on suburban history. In particular, her research is concerned with the lives, motives, and experiences of blacks who have chosen to reside in predominantly white, working-class and middle-income suburbs in the post-Vietnam War era United States. Additional research interests include post-war American social, political, and cultural history, racial identity formation, housing, and urban history. Nichole received a B.A. magna cum laude in American History with a minor in Hispanic Studies from the University of Pennsylvania in 2011, where she was a Ronald E. McNair Scholar. Before joining the History Department at Vanderbilt, Nichole worked as a Research Assistant for the American Philosophical Society and Bryn Mawr College. Her advisors are Gary Gerstle and Sarah Igo. Nichole can be contacted via e-mail at: nichole.a.nelson@vanderbilt.edu .

O'REILLY
Kelly O’Reilly is a first year graduate student in twentieth century American history. She received her B.A. in History from Columbia University (2012), graduating summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa. While at Columbia, Kelly was named as an Oxbridge Scholar, and she spent her junior year reading History at Cambridge University. Kelly’s senior thesis was entitled, “Oklatopia: The Cultural Mission of California’s Migratory Labor Camps, 1935-1941.” She intends to work with Professor Gerstle and focus on the New Deal and questions of citizenship. She can be reached at kelly.r.oreilly@vanderbilt.edu.

OSTROW
Sonja Ostrow is a third year graduate student in the field of Modern European History. She received her B.A. in History from Yale University in 2007 and then worked for an advertising agency as a brand strategist for companies such as Old Navy and Microsoft. This experience strengthened her interest in the relationship between popular culture and politics, which she seeks to explore further through the study of the cultural and intellectual history of 20th century Germany and Italy. Sonja has been awarded a Social Science Research Council (SSRC) International Dissertation Research Fellowship to conduct research in Germany during the 2013-14 academic year. She is working primarily with Dr. Helmut Walser Smith and can be reached at sonja.g.ostrow@vanderbilt.edu .

OVERDEER
Douglas G. Overdeer is a fifth year graduate student (first year full-time) pursuing his degree in U.S. diplomatic/political history and the role of the military. He is a retired military officer and recently left the Department of Officer Education at Vanderbilt where he taught leadership and military history. Doug is also an adjunct faculty member at the Joint Special Operations University and the School of Advanced Military Studies. His is working with Dr. Thomas A. Schwartz and can be reached at douglas.overdeer@vanderbilt.edu.

owen OWEN
Matt Owen received his B.A. in history and political science from Wake Forest University in 2007. He is a fifth year graduate student studying American political history in the 20th century. Matt has been awarded The Harry S. Truman Library Institute Dissertation Year Fellowship for the 2013-2014 academic year that will fund the completion of his project, "For the Progress of Man: The TVA, Electric Power, and the Environment." His special interests include Constitutional Law and the direction of civil rights after World War II. He also has a secondary interest in the separation of powers and foreign policy in the Cold War era. His adviser is Dr. Gary Gerstle. He can be reached at matthew.d.owen@vanderbilt.edu.

PAINTER
Cassandra Painter is a third-year graduate student in modern German and European History. She is particularly interested in cultural history, nationalism, and lived religion in the modern world. She completed her Bachelors in History summa cum laude at the College of Idaho, followed by a Masters at the University of Rochester, where she served as Vice President of the Graduate History Society. She is also a Jacob K. Javits Fellow. Cassandra has been awarded a grant from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) to conduct dissertation research in Germany during the 2013-14 academic year. Her dissertation, directed by her advisor Celia Applegate, will examine the popular reaction to early nineteenth-century Catholic mystic and stigmatic Anna Katharina Emmerich and the building of a modern German Catholic culture. She can be reached at cassandra.l.painter@vanderbilt.edu .

PENDERGRAPH
Max Pendergraph is a first year graduate student studying Latin America. He received his master's in Latin American Studies from Vanderbilt University in 2012 and his undergraduate degree in history and international studies from Northwestern University in 2007. He has also spent two academic years teaching English in Europe and one year teaching middle school Spanish in Gary, Indiana. His research interests pertain to migration and modern Brazil. His advisor is Dr. Marshall Eakin, and he can be reached at joseph.m.pendergraph@vanderbilt.edu.

PICARD
Danielle Picard is a Ph.D. candidate in Modern European history under the direction of Dr. Celia Applegate. She is interested in the cultural history of technology and its role in shaping the human form during the interwar period in Europe, specifically in Germany and Great Britain. She received her B.A. from Rollins College where she double-majored in History and Psychology. She has an M.A. in history from the University of Rochester, where she received the Meyers Graduate Teaching Award and Willson Coates Book Prize. She can be reached at danielle.r.picard@vanderbilt.edu.

POUPART
Clay Andrew Poupart is a Ph.D. candidate studying 20th Century American political and GLBT history. His dissertation focuses on the political relationship between conservatism and homosexuality in the post-Stonewall era. He is advised by Dr. Gary Gerstle. He received his B.A.(Honours) and M.A. from the University of Saskatchewan, the latter under the supervision of Dr. Martha Smith-Norris. He has presented at several student conferences and received the Idus A. Newby Prize in Historiography from the Hawai'i state conference of Phi Alpha Theta for the paper "Sponsors vs. Broadcasters: The Struggle for Power to1970." His M.A. thesis ""When will my turn come?: The Civil Service Purges and the Construction of a Gay Security Risk in the Cold War United States, 1945-1955" was nominated for Thesis of the Year in 2005. He has conducted research at the Center for Legislative Archives in Washington, DC, and the ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archive at the University of Southern California. His email is clay.a.poupart@vanderbilt.edu .

PRABHU
Jaideep A. Prabhu is a graduate student in the Department of History at Vanderbilt University. He is broadly interested in international political theory, diplomacy, and memory. Although Jaideep’s geographic area of expertise is the modern Near East and South Asia, he is academically proficient in modern European history, Islamic history and philosophy, the history of technology, and American foreign policy.

Previously, Jaideep has worked as a Research Assistant at the National Security Archive in Washington, D.C. Jaideep holds an undergraduate degree in engineering from Vanderbilt University and received a Masters degree in History (Middle East, International Relations) from The George Washington University, where he worked with Dr. James Hershberg. His dissertation is a multi-perspectival study of Indian nuclear policy and tentatively titled, Nuclear Dharma: India's Path to the Military Atom, 1947-1978. Jaideep’s dissertation advisor is Dr. Thomas A. Schwartz.

In 2008, Jaideep was the recipient of the prestigious West Point Military Academy Summer Fellowship. He received the J. León Helguera Dissertation Fellowship for 2010-11. Jaideep has also written a series of articles on weapons technology for the Encyclopaedia of International Relations, and serves on the Governing Council of the Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations.

Jaideep can be reached at jaideep.prabhu@vanderbilt.edu

QUIROS
Ansley Quiros is a ABD graduate student studying U.S. History with Professor Gary Gerstle, particularly focusing on lived theology in the Civil Rights Movement and the intersections between race and religion in the American South. Ansley has been awarded a Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities Graduate Fellowship for 2013-2014 that will fund the completion of her dissertation, "'Me and God Stood Up': Lived Theology in the Civil Rights Movement in Americus, 1942-1978." Originally from Atlanta, GA, she graduated from Furman University in Greenville, SC in 2008 with a degree in history and can be reached at ansley.l.quiros@vanderbilt.edu.

REWERS
Mario Rewers is a second-year graduate student of North American Studies at the John F. Kennedy Institute of the Free University of Berlin, and he will be spending the academic year 2012/13 as an exchange student at Vanderbilt University. He earned his B.A. in History and English Philology at the University of Goettingen, and before starting his graduate education he worked as a foreign language assistant at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. As a student of American Studies, he feels committed to a holistic approach to understanding North America, and particularly the United States. His main area of interest is early American history, with a focus on the eighteenth century, which led him to writing his B.A. thesis on William Byrd II. More recently, he has become interested in the history of American foreign relations, particularly as it concerns the period between the Civil War and the First World War. Methodologically, he would like to further explore the social functions of fictional modes of representation in particular historical contexts. Given his background in an essentially interdisciplinary field like American Studies, it has also been a concern of his for some time to find new and interesting ways of bringing together more traditional ways of doing intellectual history with newer forms of cultural history, paying particular attention to the work of the French Annalistes on the concept of mentalité. Mario can be reached at mario.rewers@gmail.com.

ROCHA
Christian Rocha is a second year graduate student in Latin American History, with a focus on Modern Mexico. He is particularly interested in the cultural history of post-revolutionary Mexico, Mexican popular culture, mass media, and the state's cultural policies after 1940. He received his BA in History from the University of California, Berkeley in 2010. His advisor is Dr. Eddie Wright-Rios. He can be reached at christian.rocha@vanderbilt.edu .

SCHULTZ
Kara Schultz is a fourth year graduate student in Latin American and Atlantic history. She is particularly interested in the political, social, and cultural connections between Brazil and Angola during the seventeenth century. Kara received her B.A. in History from the University of Richmond in 2008. She is working with Dr. Jane Landers and can be reached at kara.d.schultz@vanderbilt.edu.

STONE
Erin Woodruff Stone is a Ph.D. candidate studying indigenous/Spanish interactions in the Colonial Circum-Caribbean in the sixteenth century. She received her B.A. in International Studies and Spanish from the University of Miami in 2004 and her M.A. in American History (with a focus on early Florida History) from the University of North Florida in 2007. Erin is currently completing research for her dissertation entitled “Resistance, Rebellion, and Slavery: Indians in Española and the Circum-Caribbean, 1493-1575,” in which she focuses on the rise and consequences of indigenous slavery. During the academic year of 2011-2012 Erin conducted dissertation research in the archives of Spain and the Dominican Republic with the support of the IIE/Mellon Graduate Fellowship (funded by the Mellon Foundation to replace the Fulbright-Hays DDRA fellowship). While she spent the majority of her time working in the Archivo General de Indias of Sevilla, Spain she also undertook archival research in the Archivo Historico de la Nacion (Madrid), La Biblioteca Nacional (Madrid), the Biblioteca de la Real Academia de la Historia (Madrid), the Archivo de Simancas (Simancas), the Sociedad de Bibliografós (Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic), and the Archivo General de la Nacion (Santo Domingo). In addition to the IIE Fellowship, Erin is also the recipient of many short term research grants including the grant offered by the Program for Cultural Cooperation Between Spain's Ministry of Culture & United States' Universities in the summer of 2012, the Vanderbilt College of Arts and Science Summer Research Award in 2011, a Short-Term Research Grant from the International Seminar on the History of the Atlantic World in 2010, and a Tinker Field Research grant to begin her dissertation work in 2009. Following her many research trips Erin has had the opportunity to present her work at several conferences including the meetings of the Florida Historical Society (Spring 2010), the Southern Historical Association (Fall 2009 and Fall 2011), and the Conference of Ethnohistory (Fall 2009). The paper presented at the Ethnohistory conference, “America’s First Slave Revolt: Indians and African Slaves in Hispaniola, 1500-1534,” will be published shortly in the Journal of Ethnohistory. This fall Erin will be presenting her latest research at the annual meeting of the American Historical Association. She is working with Dr. Jane Landers. She can be reached at erin.w.stone@vanderbilt.edu.

SUN
Lu Sun is a Ph.D. candidate studying Cold War American foreign relations under the supervision of Dr. Schwartz. Originally from China, Lu is current writing a dissertation on Korean War POW’s, Cold War and psychological warfare. Before Vanderbilt, Lu earned a Master’s degree in American History from Peking University, where her research focused on American images of China during the Korean War. Lu has been accepted by the 2013 U.S. Foreign Policy Colloquium for a three-day conference in May 2013 in Washington, D.C. to discuss issues of U.S.-China relations and foreign policy. Lu has been awarded a research grant (Nov. 2012) by The Committee on Research, Scholarship and Education of the Harry S. Truman Library Institute, and, a travel grant from The Eisenhower Foundation (Nov. 2012). Lu recently attended 2012 Summer Institute for Conducting Archival Research which was held in George Washington University. Along with the Freeman Foundation Fellowship and Weaver Travel Grant, Lu also received the Vanderbilt Graduate School Summer Travel Grant, which funded her research trips to the National Archives of the United States, the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C, and the Chinese Foreign Ministry Archives in Beijing. Lu has been a member of SHAFR (Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations) and previously presented in SHAFR twice. Lu has been nominated as SHAFR Graduate Representative for 2012-2013. She can be reached at lu.sun@vanderbilt.edu.

SUTTON
Angela Sutton is a Ph.D. candidate in Atlantic History under the supervision of Dr. Jane Landers. Through analysis of 17th century Dutch, German and English-language sources, she investigates the mercantile culture formed through fragmentation of the Atlantic slave trade in West Africa. Angela has presented papers on the slave trade at several major conferences, including the Association of Caribbean Historians, and the Wilberforce Institute for the study of Slavery and Emancipation. Such a conference paper has been published in the peer-review journal Dark Matter. Her next presentation, about slavery and emancipation in Dutch Brazil, will be at the Omohundro Institute Conference on Africans in the Americas in Barbados. Angela has been awarded an American Council of Learned Societies Mellon dissertation finishing fellowship for the 2013-14 academic year. Angela has been awarded the VU Dissertation Enhancement grant, the Max Kade Research Grant and a Binkley Weaver grant to complete research in Sweden, Germany, the UK, and Ghana. She was a Fulbright IIE Scholar in the Netherlands for the 2010-2011 academic year. Angela received her B.A. in History & Religious Studies from the University of Stirling, Scotland, and has worked as a research assistant for the Clyde Maritime Trust in Glasgow. Angela is also currently a news editor for History Compass Exchanges, the blog for History Compass Journal published by Wiley (http://historycompass.wordpress.com/author/suttonangela/), and can be reached at angela.c.sutton@vanderbilt.edu.

TAN
Amy Gant Tan is a fourth year student focusing on early modern England and religion. Her dissertation research examines early Stuart ministers who chose to expand their ministries through print publication. Focusing in particular on the work of Richard Bernard, she is interested in ways that print changed the pastoral ministry and ways that authors used different genres to reach a variety of audiences. Amy has done previous work on the puritan understanding of divine meditation as well as on mid-seventeenth century pamphlet controversies over ecclesiastical division and the sacrament of communion. She holds an M.A. in history from Vanderbilt University, as well as a B.A. and an M.A. from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Amy is studying with Dr. Peter Lake, as well as Dr. Paul Lim. She can be reached at amy.gant.tan@vanderbilt.edu.

TARATKO
Carolyn Taratko is a first year graduate student in Modern European History with a particular interest in landscape and environmental histories as approaches to transnational issues. She received her B.A. in History and French from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. She is working under the direction of Dr. David Blackbourn and can be reached at carolyn.d.taratko@vanderbilt.edu .

TEAGUE
Aileen Teague is a second year graduate student interested in modern U.S. diplomatic history and national security policy, with a focus in the Latin American region. Aileen received her B.A. in history from Boston University in 2006, and served for four years in the U.S. Marine Corps. She is working with Dr. Thomas A. Schwartz. Please feel free to contact her at: aileen.t.teague@vanderbilt.edu.

VALENTINE
Danyelle Valentine is a first year graduate student in Caribbean History with a focus on the formation slave communities in relation to revolutionary histories. She received her B.A. in Latin American Studies from Scripps College in Claremont, California. She intends to study under the supervision of Dr. Jane Landers. Danyelle can be reached at danyelle.valentine@vanderbilt.edu.

back VANZANT

Kevin Vanzant is a Ph.D. candidate studying the British colonies in North America during the 17th century. His current focus is on the radical political ideology that surfaced during the English Civil Wars and its presence and importance in early colonial thinking and rebellion. His advisor is Dr. Daniel Usner. He can be reached at kevin.s.vanzant@vanderbilt.edu.

VILLANUEVA
Nicholas (Nick) Villanueva is a Ph.D. candidate interested in 20th century United States history of race, nationalism, and immigration. He received his B.A. in history from Missouri University of Science and Technology in 2006. His particular interests include Mexican-Americans and Mexican immigration. Nick is the recipient of the Martha Rivers Ingram Fellowship in History. He has been awarded the 2010 Webb-Smith Prize by the University of Texas at Arlington for best essay on some aspect of the Mexican Revolution, 1910-1940, for his essay on a young Mexican immigrant accused of murder in Texas and the swirl of stories surrounding his apprehension, incarceration, trial, and execution in 1910s Texas. Nick’s essay will appear in the 45th annual Walter Prescott Webb Lecture Series anthology to be published by Texas A&M University Press. His article “Sincerely Yours for Dignified Manhood: Lynching, Violence, and American Masculinity During the Early Years of the Mexican Revolution, 1910-1914” was published in the Journal of the West (Winter 2010). Nick presented at the Mid-America Conference on History (Fall 2009), the Association of Borderland Studies of the Western Social Science Association (Spring 2010), and was invited by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History to co-lead a workshop on immigration: “Did Immigrants Change America More Than America Changed Them?” (Spring 2010). Nick received a Vanderbilt University College of Arts and Science summer research grant (Summer 2010) to conduct research in Mexico City and Guadalajara for his forthcoming dissertation: “No Place for Refuge: The Lynching of Mexicans and the Emergence of a Mexican-American Civil Rights Movement in Texas, 1910-1920.” He also received a Vanderbilt University Ingram history Graduate Fellowship for 2010-11. Nick has received a $45,000 award for "Excellence in West Texas History" Fellowship, Porter Henderson Library, Angelo State University, San Angelo, Texas, for the 2011-12 academic year. Nick served as the keynote speaker at his hometown LULAC chapter’s annual scholarship awards banquette for his commitment to serving the Latino/Latina community (Fall 2011). Nick presented his research at the annual meeting of the Western Historical Association in Denver, Colorado (Fall 2012). Nick is working with Dr. Gary Gerstle. He can be reached at nicholas.villanueva@vanderbilt.edu .

WILLIAMS
J'Nese Williams is a graduate student in the field of modern British history. She is particularly interested in the British experience and remembrance of World War I. J'Nese received her B.A. in history from Princeton University. Her email address is jnese.n.williams@vanderbilt.edu.

WILSMAN
Adam Wilsman is a Ph.D. candidate of Dr. Thomas Alan Schwartz. He is studying Cold War American foreign relations with a concentration on relations between the United States and El Salvador from 1977-1989. His dissertation, entitled "Our Enemy's Enemy: Human Rights and the U.S. Intervention in El Salvador, 1977-1992," is currently in progress. Adam received his B.A. in history from Binghamton University in 2006. He can be reached at Adam.R.Wilsman@Vanderbilt.edu.

collage

VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY | A&S HOME