History Previous Honors Theses

Candland, Emma. ‘I’m Terribly Fond of the Pictures!’: Young Women’s Film Fan Cultures, 1914-1928. Advisor: Francis Couvares.

Daitz, Emma. Who is a Turk? Defining Turkishness and Nationalism in Society, Culture, and Race. Advisor: Monica Ringer.

Fine, Ethan. A Point of Inflection: the New Negro Alliance and a Rebirth of the Black Freedom Struggle in Washington, D.C. Advisor: Francis Couvares. Winner of the 2023 Asa J. Davis Prize.

Hamilton, Theo. The Bulgarian Crisis and the Contestation of Ottoman Sovereignty: A Cultural and Institutional Reexamination of British-Ottoman Diplomacy in the Mid-Nineteenth Century. Advisor: Monica Ringer. Winner of the 2022 Alfred F. Havighurst Prize.

Jani, Meenakshi. “Missionaries in Conservation”: Foresters as State-Builders and Mythmakers in Colonial India and the Philippines. Advisor: Edward Melillo. Winner of the 2023 Alfred F. Havighurst Prize.

Lambert, Caitlin. “A Field of Blood”: Ethno-religious Cleansing and Cultural Genocide in Early Modern Ireland, 1641-1798. Advisor: Jutta Sperling.

Levenstein, Tessa. Educating for Indigenous Futures: Ray Fadden, Troop 17, and the Akwesasne Mohawk Counselor Organization. Advisor: Francis Couvares. Winner of the 2022 Alfred F. Havighurst Prize.

Metz, Chloe. “A Thoroughly Mongrel Race” in a “Faraway, Gaslit World”: Levantine Liminality and Legacy in Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Port Cities. Advisor: Monica Ringer.

Rao, Diego. The New Gold Rush: Marketing, Media, and the Commodification of Personal Data. Advisor: Edward Melillo.

Stephens, Jack. Socialism and Progress or Imperialism and Decadence? Art as a Weapon in Black Literature and Culture--from Marxism to Racial Liberalism. Advisors: Stefan Bradley and Sean Redding.  Winner of the 2023 Asa J. Davis Prize.

Vander Vort, Jack. The Cost of Reaction: The Failure of the United States to Prevent Japan’s Quest for Dominance in Asia-Pacific, 1931-1941. Advisor: Ellen Boucher.

Brice, Jordan. Corruption of the Body Mortal, Corruption of the Body Politic: Illness, Kingship, and Masculinity in 15th Century England. Advisor: Jutta Sperling.

Brodey, Thomas. Grassroots Expansionists: American Filibusters of the 1830s and the Birth of Manifest Destiny Advisor: Francis G. Couvares.

Forman-Roberts, Ilyssa. Fertile Grounds for Solidarity: Black and Jewish Radical Relationships in Interwar New York City. Advisor: Jen Manion. Winner of the 2022 Asa J. Davis Prize.

Gordon, Dean. The Journey to Kūʻokoʻa: Timoteo Haʻalilio and the Pursuit of Hawaiian Independence, 1842-1844. Advisor: Edward Melillo. Winner of the 2022 Alfred F. Havighurst Prize.

Kromer, Blake. Autonomy and Agency in the Warsaw Pact: Nicolae Ceaușescu’s Romania. Advisor: Monica Ringer. 

Ramras, Anya. Athletics, Opportunism, and Civil Rights: William Henry Lewis and the Liberal Arts Synthesis. Advisor: Francis G. Couvares. Winner of the 2022 Asa J. Davis Prize.

Tokovic, Nadija. Secrecy and Surveillance in US Intelligence Agencies in the Era of Mass Protest. Advisor: Francis G. Couvares.

Wang, Yosen. “Blessed are Those Who Mourn”: Nationalist Implications of Private Piety in Brahms’s German Requiem. Advisor: Sergey Glebov.

Weeda, Makaela. Are we all evil? The neural correlates of dehumanization and their influence upon Japanese and German perpetrators of atrocity before and during the Second World War. Advisor: Trent E. Maxey.

Agathis, Anna. Annexation and Enlightenment: Catherine II’s Epistolary Exchange on the Crimean “Other.” Advisor: Adi Gordon.

Bucio, Gabriela. Activist Motherhood and Structures of Mobilization: Interpreting Mothers’ Search for the Disappeared in Mexico and Argentina. Advisor: Vanessa Walker.

Cho, Cammie. The Institutions of the Central-European Refugees in Shanghai: A Reframing of Agency. Advisor: Adi Gordon.

De Jonge, Nathaniel L. Cosmologies in Conflict: Land, Identity, and Hegemony in Aotearoa New Zealand. Advisor: Edward D. Melillo.

De Rosa, Natalie. Community Control to Local Control: Public Schools and the Paradox of the State in Newark, NJ, 1967-1995. Advisor: Hilary Moss. Winner of the 2021 Asa J. Davis Prize.

Dunbar, Mary Claire. Power, Protest, and Prejudice: Black GI Anti-War Activism in the Vietnam Era. Advisor: Vanessa Walker.

Gilsdorf, Benjamin X. Electoral Imperialism: The Right to Vote and American Colonialism in Hawai’i. Advisor: Edward Melillo. Winner of the 2021 Alfred F. Havighurst Prize.

John, Noah. Changing Masks: Black Jazz Musicians and the Politics of Racial Authenticity Before, During and After the Second World War. Advisor: Jen Manion.

Krosniak, Katherine. Battle for Hearts and Minds: U.S. Propaganda in the 1980s and the Polish Solidarity Movement. Advisor: Vanessa Walker.

Ma, Xinyi (Lexi). The Coveted Passage: Illegal Emigration from Fuzhou to the United States in the Late 20^th Century. Advisor: George Qiao.

Newton, Henry. Memories, Biases, and Blind Spots: The Marine Corps’ Combined Action Platoon Program in Vietnam. Advisor: Vanessa Walker.

Noyes, Maia F. A Single Struggle With Many Faces: Shortcomings in International Solidarity in the Women’s Rights Movement During the Vietnam War. Advisor: Vanessa Walker.

Sanchez Fernandez, Marco Antonio. The Colegio de Santa Cruz in the Creation of an Indigenous Intelligentsia in Early Colonial Mexico. Advisor: Rick López.

Shin, Enoch. Drawing the Line: Cultural Borders and Hegemony in California, 1848-1900. Advisor: Rick López.

Stauss, Bridget. The Gloves Were Already Off: The History of Torture as American Praxis. Advisor: Sean Redding.

Wang, David. A Lost Revolution: American Shipbuilding Logistics and Labor in World War One. Advisor: Ellen Boucher.

Blackman, Charlotte. "Evolve to become more like us": the transformation and weaponization of French femininity during the emancipation project in the Algerian War, 1957-1962. Advisor: Sean Redding. Winner of the 2020 Asa J. Davis Prize.

Blum, Camille. The origins of Glasnost: P.G. Grigorenko and Soviet dissident networks in the 1970s. Advisor: Sergey Glebov.

Boynton, Elinor Scout. Post-colonial immigration: Algerian experiences of nationality and belonging in France 1962-1993. Advisor: Sean Redding. Winner of the 2020 Asa J. Davis Prize.

Brennan, Heather. Let the law take its course: women and the Irish prison system, 1857-1877. Advisor: Jen Manion. Winner of the 2020 Alfred F. Havighurst Prize.

Davis, Rebecca. Dispelling surfing's myths: a history revisited. Advisor: Edward D. Melillo. Winner of the 2020 Alfred F. Havighurst Prize.

Figurelli-Reid, Jay. Invoking empire: arbitration and the Alsop Claim. Advisor: Vanessa Walker.

Klein, A.J. Antitoxin in America: the revolution in diphtheria treatment 1890-1898. Advisor: John W. Servos.

Lee, Ariana. From Fu Manchu to Crazy Rich Asians: a history of protesting Asian American representations in film and theater. Advisor: Trent E. Maxey.

Saeed, Yasmeen. Myth, nostalgia and the construction of Turkish national identity. Advisor: Monica Ringer.

Smith, Jeremy Clark. Ideology vs. reality: the limits of American intervention in post-Soviet Russian reform. Advisor: Sergey Glebov.

Wang, Sarah. Being excluded from America then and now: implications and effects of the 1965 Hart-Celler Act and the Yellow Power movement on Asian Americans and anti-immigrant rhetoric today. Advisor: Franklin S. Odo.

Yarnall, Matthew. Cortisol communities: stress, the Balkan Wars (1912-1913), and the socio-economic, demographic, and psychophysical origins of Turkish nationalism in the late Ottoman empire. Advisor: Monica Ringer. 

 Brown, Davis. The Social and Political Function of Piracy in Early Nineteenth-Century America. Advisor: Edward D. Melillo.

Dow, Michael. Arms Control Pioneer: John J. McCloy and Disarmament Strategy in the Kennedy Administration. Advisor: Vanessa Walker

Isaac, Esther. Good Propaganda and Joyous Laughter: Building Community in the Anarchist Movements of Chicago and Paris, 1871-1914. Advisor: Ellen R. Boucher. Winner of the 2019 Alfred F. Havighurst Prize.

McNamara, Jamie. Hybridity, Revolution, and Madame Nhu in French Colonial Vietnam. Advisor: Vanessa Walker.

Murphy, Annie. The Wrong Side of History: Understanding the Boy Scouts of America’s Ban on Gay Members and Leaders from 1978-2015. Advisor: Francis G. Couvares.

Quigley, Nathaniel. An Irresolvable Contestation: Reconsidering Liberalism Through the Figure of Allan Octavian Hume. Advisor: Ellen R. Boucher

Rosenthal, Ethan. Thatcherite Nationalism: A New Type of Conservatism. Advisor: Adi Gordon.

Savage, Katherine. Recovering Memory Through Materiality: Spain's Memory Wars and Contested Sites of Memory. Advisor: Sergey Glebov

Simonitis, Mark. The Scottish National Myth and Its Uses in Scottish and British Nationalism. Advisor: Adi Gordon

Tierney, Shannon. The Regulation of Sexuality in 19th and Early 20th Century Ireland. Advisor: Jen Manion

Arthur, Mitchell M. Galway: 1916-1922 Irish Revolution. Advisor: Ellen R. Boucher.

Bean, Cameron. New Atlanta: The Era of Coalition Politics. Advisor: Francis G. Couvares.

Duquette, Audrey M. Taxes and Terrorism: The Development of American Nationalism. Advisor: Francis G. Couvares.

Feng, Siyu (2017E). From Istanbul to Kashgar: Ahmet Kemal's Education Mission to Chinese Turkestan, 1885-1917. Advisor: Monica Ringer. Winner of the 2017 Afred F. Havighurst Prize.

Giampa, Jordan. All Men Are Created Equal?: A Local History of the Vietnam War Draft’s Inequalities in Worcester County, Massachusetts. Advisor: Francis G. Couvares.

Green, Yvonne. Ottoman Citizens: Citizenship and National Identity in the Late Ottoman Empire. Advisor: Monica Ringer.

Johnson, Paul S. Politics, Pricing, and Patents: An Analysis of the Pharmaceutical Industry through the Kefauver Hearings. Advisor: John W. Servos.

Keith, David A. Ameen Rihani and the Development of Arab Secularism Onto and Beyond the Americas. Advisor: Monica Ringer.

Lewis, Brittanie L. Undocumented Entrepreneurship, Sociocultural Reproduction, and the Negotiation of Borders: A Mexican Flea Market in an Anti-Immigrant Age. Advisor: Rick A. Lopez. Winner of the 2017. Afred F. Havighurst Prize.

Meijer, Raymond H. The Struggle between Conflicting Religious Identity and Political Convictions: Catholic Priests’ Involvement in the American Social Movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Advisor: Hilary Moss.

Noerdlinger, Laura K. The Glory of Bordeaux, the Glory of France: The 1855 Classification of the Wines of the Gironde and the Formation of Bordeaux within the French Nation. Advisor: Rick A. Lopez. Winner of the 2017 Asa J. Davis Prize.

Raskin, Thomas B. Until Every Cage is Empty: The Ideas that Made the Animal Liberation Movement. Advisor: Alec Hickmott.

Tirop, Caryce C. The Subaltern Speaks: Rethinking Kenyan Identity within the Indian Diaspora of Kenya. Advisor: Sean Redding. Winner of the 2017 Asa J. Davis Prize.

Chen, Shiyan (Nancy). "Not a Day Goes by without this Gentleman:" A History of Bamboo in China. Advisor: Edward D. Melillo. Winner of the 2016 Afred F. Havighurst Prize.

Hart, Samuel T. On Mass Incarceration in the United States and Australia between 1960 and 2016. Advisor: Sean Redding.

Judge, Doyle P. History and the Modern State of Veteran Care in America. Advisor: Francis G. Couvares.

Kiley, Margaret D. (Maggie). The Devolution of the Connecticut Death Penalty from 1960 to Present Day: A Lens into the Institution of Capital Punishment in the United States. Advisor: Vanessa Walker (Fall) / Francis G. Couvares (Spring).

Konijnenberg, Rebecca C. The United States and the League of Nations from 1919 until 1925: A Story of Unilateralism in the Aftermath of the League Fight. Advisor: Vanessa Walker.

Mardeusz, Elizabeth H. (Liz). From Ashes, "Absence": American Collective Memory, Identity, and the National September 11 Memorial. Advisor: Francis G. Couvares.

McEvoy, Theresa J. (Tessa). Reconstructing Iona: Tourism, the Celtic Revival and British Identity in the 19th Century. Advisor: Jun Hee Cho (Fall) / Ellen R. Boucher (Spring).

Revery, Chloe A. The Digital Shuffle: The Development of Software for the Space Shuttle, 1970-1979. Advisor: John W. Servos.

Robertson, Ericka N. Amherst College, Doshisha University, and the Evolution of Private Western Influence in Japan from the 1920s to the 1950s. Advisor: Vanessa Walker.

Rose, Abigail H. The Triumph and Failure of Lyndon Johnson: The Balancing Act of Domestic and Foreign Policy in 1964. Advisor: Vanessa Walker.

Shahmehri, Demetrius Q. Robert Musil's Critique of Ideology, 1919-1923. Advisor: Adi Gordon. Winner of the 2016 Afred F. Havighurst Prize.

Stein, Jason E. We'll be Back for the Next Half-Inning after the Commercial Break: Media, Technology and Change in Major League Baseball from Radio to Cord-Cutting. Advisor: Trent E. Maxey.

Strickler, Travis L. Omar Bradley: The Allies' Unsung General. Advisor: Kevin M. Sweeney.

Teyie, Alexis. The Gospel of the Camera: Picture Postcards Published by Missionaries in Colonial Kenya, 1900-1940. Advisor: Sean Redding. Winner of the 2016 Asa J. Davis Prize.

Woodard, Vanessa V. Chains Not Yet Broken: The Separate Legacies of Indigenous Forced Labor and African Slavery in Columbian Society.  Advisor: Rick A. Lopez.