Student Directory

BACK
Debra Back is a sixth-year student studying the nineteenth-century American South and minoring in Native American history. She received her BA and MA at Miami University in Ohio, where she wrote her master's thesis entitled "Women of The Hermitage Plantation Household". Currently, she is interested in the interactions and correlations between social upward mobility and leisure activities in antebellum middle Tennessee.

BANTON
My interests are in Caribbean and African Diaspora History, particularly the Caribbean's role and interactions with members of the African Diasporic community. I am also interested in researching how music, especially how Caribbean music constructed each Caribbean country's national identity, as well as the identity and language of the African Diaspora. I also have an interest in foreign policy directed towards the Caribbean region in the Cold War era. I am currently working with Dr. Richard Blackett, Dr. Jane Landers and Dr. Roseanne Adderley.

BISHOP
My interests are 20th century American diplomatic history and alliance politics. I have a special interest in the so-called special relationship between the US and UK in the post-WWII period and am particularly interested in Anglo-American relations during the mid-to-late-1970s. I am currently working with Dr. Thomas Schwartz.

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.

DEGREGORY
A native of Freeport, Bahamas, Crystal A. deGregory is a sixth-year student and a fellow of the Center for Nashville Studies. While her interests include the roles of race and class in the decolonization of British colonies around the world as well as the inter-relationships of these movements to the modern civil rights movement of the American South, her graduate work focuses on the role of black college student activism in the Nashville Movement. A proud Fiskite, from Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee in May 2003 and was awarded a Master of Arts degree in history from Vanderbilt in May 2005. Her dissertation advisor is Dr. Dennis C. Dickerson and her email address is c.a.degregory@vanderbilt.edu.

DEWAAL
Jeremy DeWaal is a second-year student studying Modern Germany under Dr. Helmut Walser Smith. His particular interests are in national and regional identities and Heimat in 19th- and 20th-century Germany. 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. During the 2008-2009 year, Jeremy will be doing his second year of coursework in an exchange at the Free University of Berlin. Jeremy can be reached at jeremy.j.dewaal@vanderbilt.edu

DICKERSON
Christina Marie Dickerson (B.A., History, Spelman College, 2004; M.A., History, Vanderbilt University, 2007) is currently a fourth-year Ph.D. student. She works under the supervision of Dr. Daniel Usner. She studies Colonial North America, with a particular focus on Native Americans, and the Atlantic World. Her dissertation topic addresses the Jumonville Affair and the subsequent battle at Fort Necessity in 1754. She has performed research on this topic in Philadelphia at The Library Company and The Historical Society of Pennsylvania and in Montreal at the Centre d'archives de Montreal. Christina received a John Carter Brown Library Fellowship, which will allow her to utilize the library's holdings for two months during the summer of 2008. Her e-mail address is christina.m.dickerson@vanderbilt.edu.

DONALDSON
Rachel Donaldson is a doctoral candidate concentrating in twentieth-century American history, with minor fields in cultural history and labor history. She is currently in the research phase of her dissertation on the role the 1930s-1960s folk music revival played in shaping popular concepts of national identity. She has received the Kentucky Library and Museum Fellowship for 2008, and is a Smithsonian predoctoral fellow at the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. She is working with Dr. Gary Gerstle.

DONGMO
Christophe concentrates on 20th Century African American Labor History with Dr. Dennis Dickerson. His minor fields are U.S Diplomatic History (Dr. Thomas Schwartz) and Late Modern European History (Dr. Michael Bess).

In the past, he worked as Assistant Editor of the South African Law Journal and was a 2002 Research Fellow, Centre for Studies and Research, Hague Academy of International Law, The Netherlands. From 2002 – 2003, he resided in Italy as third recipient of the African fellowship program, Bologna Center, School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).

His major publications include: (1). “The UN and NATO: Beyond the Kosovo Legacy (Bologna Center Journal of International Affairs, SAIS, Spring 2003); (2) “Collective Identity and the Construction of Political Markets in Africa”; and (3) “Civil War in Cote D’Ivoire: Another Perspective on the Economy and the Political Order in Africa,” in Judith Gardam & Ustinia Dolgopol (eds.), The Challenge of Conflict, International Law Responds (Leiden: Brim Academic & Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2006).

LLB (Yaoundé); LLM (Witwatersrand); and MA, Political Science (Johns Hopkins).

ELRICK
Joanna is a third-year PhD student working with Dr. Jane Landers. Her present focus is on slavery and religion in 18th century Brazil. She can be contacted at joanna.k.elrick@vanderbilt.edu

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 is an investigation of the cultural ramifications of commission rate deregulation at the New York Stock Exchange in 1975, an event known as "May Day." This unique historical moment helps reveal the increasingly important role of securities markets and institutional investing in the evolution of American retirement practices. Paula was awarded the Business History Conference's 2008 Kerr Prize for her paper "Expanding Connections between the New York Stock Exchange and
the Employee Retirement Income Security Act." She is a College of Arts and Science Social Science Dissertation Fellow for 2008-2009. Paula can be reached at paula.k.gajewski@vanderbilt.edu; her advisor is Dr. Gary Gerstle.

GOMEZ
Pablo F Gomez (MD, MA) is a fourth-year graduate student working on Latin-American and Atlantic World History from a Medical historical perspective. More specifically, Pablo’s work examines African and Afro-descendants’ health and religious practices vis-à-vis European and Indigenous ones in Colonial Spain. The members of Pablo’s doctoral dissertation committee are: Dr. Jane Landers (History), Dr. Marshall Eakin (History), Dr. Arleen Tuchman (History), Dr. Matthew Ramsey (History) and Dr. Steven Wernke (Anthropology).

GROSSMAN
Rose Beth Grossman is in her fourth year of graduate study. Her research in the field of Atlantic World History examines the cultural impact of commercial relations in the eighteenth century, specifically in South Carolina and the British West Indies. Her advisors are Drs. Catherine Molineux, Jane Landers, and Dan Usner. Rose Beth holds an M.A. from Vanderbilt University as well as a B.S. in International Business and a B.A. in History from the College of Charleston Honors College. Please contact Rose Beth at rb.grossman@vanderbilt.edu.

HANSEN
Jon Hansen is a third-year Ph.D. student working under the direction of Dr. Dennis Dickerson. His focus is on 20th century United States with an emphasis on religious history. His most recent research has focused on the political sentiments of Protestant groups during the Vietnam War. Jon can be reached at jonathan.hansen@vanderbilt.edu .

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HARDIN
William Fernandez Hardin is a third-year student and a graduate of American University's Washington College of Law and a member of the Tennessee Bar. His present focus is colonial and antebellum legal history and its relation to slavery and race in Virginia. Mr. Hardin is originally from Newport News, Virginia and graduated from the University of Virginia with a B.A. in English literature and Modern Studies. Dr. David L. Carlton is his faculty advisor. His email address is william.f.hardin@vanderbilt.edu

HARRISON
Steve Harrison is a second-year graduate student working with Dr. Tom 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. She is a first year student studying nineteenth century American social history, with a special interest in social attitudes on criminal punishment during the antebellum era. Her adviser is Dr. Richard Blackett. She can be reached at erica.m.rhodes@vanderbilt.edu.

HUDSON
Cheryl Hudson is an ABD student in US History. She is in the final year of writing up her dissertation, entitled "Making Citizens: Political Culture in Chicago, 1890-1930." Her research examines the cultural and political context for the forging of a new urban, modern US citizenship at the turn of the twentieth century. Her central research interests are in Urban History, African American History and Intellectual History. She works with Dr. Don Doyle. Her email address is cheryl.a.hudson@vanderbilt.edu

HUTTON
Bob Hutton is a sixth-year graduate student currently writing his dissertation on political violence in the nineteenth-century South. He has presented at the Tennessee Conference of Historians, the Bluegrass Symposium, the Social Science Historical Association, the Southern Historical Association and at the French Association for American Studies. He has written reviews for Appalachian Journal, h-south-net and The Journal of Material Culture. He has written one article ("Beating a Dead Horse: The Continuing Presence of Frederick Jackson Turner in Environmental and Western History” published in the Spring, 2002 issue of International Social Science Review) and has also written an entry for the forthcoming Encyclopedia of the Culture Wars. His essay on Reconstruction-era Kentucky will appear in the forthcoming "Echoes of War: The Civil War's Aftermath in Appalachia" (University of Kentucky Press). Bob's primary adviser is Dr. David Carlton.

INMAN
Natalie Inman is a sixth-year graduate student specializing in Early American history advised by Dr. Dan Usner. Her dissertation entitled, “Networking and Negotiation on the Trans-Appalachian Frontier: A Comparative Study of Strategic Decision-Making in Cherokee, Chickasaw, and Anglo-American Communities, 1700-1840,” evaluates comparatively the ways members of each of these three societies used personal relationships to negotiate their social, economic, and political positions in the highly competitive colonial and early republic frontiers. Natalie is currently a fellow with Vanderbilt's Center for the Americas.

JACKSON
Patrick D. Jackson is a fiftth-year student interested in the history of religion and politics, the working class, and social movements. He received his B.A. in history at the University of Kentucky before doing post-baccalaureate work in Heidelberg and Berlin. He holds the Vanderbilt University College of Arts & Sciences Social Science Dissertation Fellowship for the 2008-2009 academic year. Drs. Dickerson and Fergus are on Patrick's committee and his primary adviser is Dr. Gerstle. Patrick's email address is: patrick.d.jackson@vanderbilt.edu.

JOHNSON
Kurt Johnson is a fifth-year Ph.D candidate studying Modern German History with a focus on cultural and intellectual history under the supervision of Dr. Helmut Walser Smith. He is currently working on his dissertation which is tentatively titled, "The Re-enchanted Body in German Culture, 1871-1918." Kurt received his BA from the University of Tennessee in 2001 and an MA from Washington University in St. Louis in 2004. His e-mail address is: ryan.k.johnson@vanderbilt.edu

LEFEVOR
David is a fifth-year PhD candidate in Latin American History. His dissertation is in-process and focuses on race, sport, and modernity in Revolutionary Mexico and Republican Cuba. His research interests also include Latin American nationalism and the reciprocal cultural influences between the United States, Cuba, and Mexico. He has thus far completed archival work in Cuba, Argentina, and Brazil. During Spring of 2007 he completed research in Cuba and Mexico. He has received a fulbright Grant for 2008-2009. His adviser is Dr. Marshall Eakin.

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.

MAZURSKA
I am interested in 20th century European history, especially the intellectual history of France, Russia and Poland. I graduated from Nicolaus Copernicus University, 2002, in Torun, Poland. I am currently working with Dr. Michael Bess. My e-mail address is: joanna.m.mazurska@vanderbilt.edu

MORAN
Megan Moran is a sixth-year graduate student at Vanderbilt University (B.A., The College of William and Mary; M.A., Vanderbilt University) whose research interests include gender and family in early modern Europe. Her dissertation examines the workings of patriarchy in late medieval and early modern Italy by investigating the interactions and relationships of men and women in the Florentine Spinelli family. Megan received a 2007-2008 Warren Center Graduate Student Dissertation Completion fellow and presented "Patriarchy in Practice: Gender Relations in a Late Medieval and Early Modern Florentine Family" on April 18th at the Robert Penn Warren Center. She is particularly interested in how women and men collaborated, contested and negotiated various forms of patriarchy as they participated in family affairs. Her advisor is Dr. William Caferro and she can be reached at megan.c.moran@vanderbilt.edu.

MOSHER
Shawn Mosher is a fourth-year 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.

POUPART
Clay Andrew Poupart is a second-year PhD student with a focus on 20th Century American political history. 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.

PRABHU
Jaideep Prabhu is a fourth-year graduate student at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, in the Doctor of Philosophy program in History. He studies diplomacy, science & technology, and power structures, looking primarily at modern South Asia, Middle East, and Europe. Jaideep's specific fields for his qualifying exams were Imperialism/Counter-Imperialism, Nationalism Theory & Intellectual History, and International Relations. His dissertation analyzes Indian nuclear policy from 1962-1978, with a particular emphasis on scientific cooperation between India and the Cold War Powers. The thesis also considers views of China in the region and the evolving Cold War.

Previously, Jaideep has worked as a Research Assistant at the National Security Archive in Washington, D.C. His undergraduate degree is in Computer Engineering from Vanderbilt University and he received his Master's in History (Middle East, International Relations) from The George Washington University in Washington, DC, where he worked under Dr. James Hershberg. Jaideep's Masters thesis, titled "Making the Buddha Smile: India's Road from the LTBT to the NPT," focused on Indian nuclear decision-making. At Vanderbilt, Jaideep's primary advisor is Dr. Thomas Schwartz.

Jaideep is also the recipient of the prestigious West Point Military Academy Summer Fellowship, 2008. During 2008, Jaideep also received, among others, a grant from the SHAFR. Jaideep can be reached at jaideep.prabhu@vanderbilt.edu.

Jaideep is also a member of the Karate Club at Vanderbilt.

RIVERS
Larry O. Rivers is a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate whose teaching and research interests include: Black Intellectual History, Black Religion, the Civil Rights Movement, Modern Media, and Twentieth Century Florida. In 2004, he earned his B.S. in Public Relations from Florida Agricultural & Mechanical University in his hometown of Tallahassee, Florida. During Spring 2006, he completed his M.A. thesis entitled: "Fred David Gray, Donald Lee Hollowell, and the Legal Profession as a Vehicle for Religious Witness in Black America, 1955-1968." Larry's article "'Leaning on the Everlasting Arms': Virgil Darnell Hawkins's Early Life and Entry into the Civil Rights Struggle" was published in The Florida Historical Quarterly (Winter 2008). Larry's current research focuses on the desegregation of Florida's public university system and the intellectual history of Tallahassee's civil rights struggle. His adviser is Dr. Dennis C. Dickerson. Larry's email address is larry.o.rivers@vanderbilt.edu.

SANDERFER
Selena Sanderfer is a Ph.D. candidate studying topics in American history, the Atlantic World and the African Diaspora from the late 18th to the early 20th century. Selena's master's thesis examined the system of education during the U.S. Occupation of Haiti in the early twentieth century, while her dissertation is a longitudinal study of black separatist movements and migrations from the South. Her adviser is Dr. Richard Blackett.

SANDERSON
Mary Sanderson is a sixth-year graduate student specializing in eighteenth and nineteenth century Britain. Her interests include high and low political culture, religion, and empire. Her dissertation (still in progress) is entitled “‘Our Own Catholic Countrymen’: Loyalism, Religion, and Subjecthood in the British Empire, 1760-1829”. It examines the position of Roman Catholics in the British Empire between the Seven Years’ War and Catholic Emancipation in order to investigate how the connection between religion and national belonging evolved during this time period. Other works include her M.A. Thesis, “Excess and Ambiguity: James Gillray’s Cartoons of William Pitt and Charles James Fox, 1793-1795”, and the paper “Religion and Subjecthood in the British Empire, 1760-1774: The Problem of Quebec”, which she will present at the NECBS conference in October, 2007. She is working with Dr. Jim Epstein. To contact her, please send an e-mail to: mary.l.sanderson@vanderbilt.edu.

SUTTON
Angela Sutton is a second-year student and graduated with a dual honors degree in History and Religious Studies from the University of Stirling in Scotland, and has worked as a historical research assistant for the Clyde Maritime Trust. Her interest in maritime history thus sparked, she now utilizes interdisciplinary methodologies to analyze sailors, pirates, slaves, merchants, and other maritime agents of the early modern Atlantic. She is particularly motivated to find out more about how these groups facilitated the vital exchange of people, ideas and material culture between Europe, the Americas, and West Africa in the turbulent times of colonialism and conquest." Angela's primary adviser is Dr. Jane Landers.

TEETER
Keith Teeter is a second-year student interested in 19th century United States social history. He received his B.A. in history from Kansas State University in 2006 where he wrote a senior thesis entitled "A House Sub-Divided: Class Tensions in African-American Regiments". His particular interests include race and class during the Civil War and Reconstruction. Keith is working with Dr. Daniel Usner.

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Kevin Vanzant is a third-year student 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 H. Usner. He can be reached at kevin.s.vanzant@vanderbilt.edu.

VILLANUEVA
Nicholas (Nick) Villanueva is a second-year graduate student interested in 20th century United States history of race and nationalism. He received his B.A. in history from the University of Missouri-Rolla in 2006. His particular interests include Mexican-Americans and Mexican immigration. Nick is working with Dr. Gary Gerstle.

WHEAT
David Wheat is a Ph.D. candidate studying the Iberian Atlantic World, colonial Latin American and Caribbean history, and the African diaspora. His adviser is Dr. Jane G. Landers. Wheat is currently writing a dissertation on the African populations of the early colonial Spanish Caribbean, tentatively entitled “Keys to the Indies: African Settlers in Cartagena and Havana, 1570-1640.” He conducted extensive dissertation research in Spain under the auspices of a Fulbright-IIE fellowship, the Conference on Latin American History’s Lydia Cabrera Award, and a Summer Research Award from Vanderbilt’s College of Arts & Sciences. Wheat visited Cuba twice while serving as graduate assistant for the historical preservation project “Ecclesiastical Sources for Slave Societies,” and additional research in Colombia was funded by a Dissertation Enhancement Grant from the Graduate School. In the past five years he has presented research at the AHA, WHA, FEEGI, BRASA, and SHA in addition to major international conferences in Cape Coast, Hull, Belo Horizonte, Veracruz, and Lisbon. In May 2008, he was invited to present a paper at a conference on the Social History of the Sea at the University of Minnesota’s Center for Early Modern History. During the academic year 2008-2009, Wheat will be a Graduate Student Fellow at Vanderbilt’s Robert Penn Warren Center. He can be reached at david.wheat@vanderbilt.edu.

WILHIDE
Nicolette Wilhide is a second-year graduate student who completed her B.A. in History & Spanish as well as her M.A. in Spanish from West Virginia University. She studies Latin America with a particular focus on modern Brazil. Her areas of interest include gender, sexuality, popular culture and labor. She is under the supervision of Dr. Marshall Eakin.

WILSMAN
Adam Wilsman is a second-year graduate student of Dr. Thomas Schwartz. He is studying twentieth century American diplomatic history with a concentration on U.S. and Latin American relations during the Cold War era. Adam received his B.A. in history from SUNY Binghamton in 2006. He can be reached at adam.r.wilsman@vanderbilt.edu.

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Department of History
VU Station B #351802
2301 Vanderbilt Place
Nashville, TN 37235-1802

Department Location:
227 Benson Hall
Phone: (615) 322-2575
Fax: (615) 343-6002

E-mail: History@vanderbilt.edu

Office Hours:
Monday-Friday 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. CST

Summer Office Hours:
Monday-Friday 8 a.m.-4 p.m.

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