Student Research and Honors
All Majors and Minors in the History Department participate in two semesters of independent student research in the senior seminar. While the thematic focus of these seminars changes based on the faculty member’s area of expertise, every Major and Minor undertakes independent research with primary and secondary sources and creates a project in the student’s geographical and/or thematic areas of interest.
History Majors who are rising Seniors (or Juniors who are completing the research portion of their CUE during their 6th semester) who have earned a 3.75 grade point average in History and a 3.50 grade point average overall have the opportunity to participate in the Department’s Honors Program. Students work with three faculty members (at least two from the History Department) to review their work over the course of the semester, which culminates in an oral defense of their independent research project. Students who wish to pursue honors are eligible for one of three honors categories: Honors, High Honors, or Highest Honors.
Recent Senior Seminars
- Africa and Global Protest Movements (Runcie)
- Expanding World of the Early Modern (Stein)
- Gender, Race, and Sexuality in the History of American Medicine (Antonovich)
- WWII in European Cinema (Cragin)
- The Age of Franklin Roosevelt (Malsberger)
- Inventing America (Yankaskas)
- Gender and Sexuality in Latin America & the Caribbean (Ouellette)
- Silk, Spices, World Trade (Stein)
- Tudor & Stuart Britain (Tighe)
- Cold War America (Malsberger)
- World War II in European Cinema (Cragin)
- Life & Death in the Atlantic World (Ouellette)
- The Reformation (Tighe)
Recent Student Honors Research Projects
2023-2024
Andrew Buckwalter, Foreign Anglican Priests and Their Anti-Apartheid Radicalization, Honors
Alena Craig, Clothing the Glorious Revolution, Honors
Simone Dutton, An Exploration into England's Most Controversial Queen Anne Boleyn: Separating Fact from Fiction, Honors
Samuel Glass, Ireland: Divided by Politics, United Against Apartheid, Honors
Declan Kelsey, Lessons in Colonization: The Impact of Shane O'Neill's Revolt on English Policy in Ireland, Highest Honors
Jenny Lee, The Success of Catholicism under Mary Tudor: Examining her Policies and Her Legacy, High Honors
Charlotte McKay, Love Thy Neighbor...Unless they have AIDS, Honors
R.J. Mahar, Playing with Fire: A History of Video Game Moral Panic, Highest Honors
William Moody, How the United States Justifies its Relationships with Problematic Allies, Honors
2022-2023
Sophia Framm, Gender, Revolution, and War: the Impact of Women's Participation on Changing Gender Norms During the Mexican Revolution, High Honors
Madison Leonard, A Spirit of Dogged, Sullen Resistance: Southern Upper-Class White Women's Experiences of the Civil War, High Honors
2021-2022
Aryeh Filler, The War on Terror in the Context of Public Health: 9/11, Islamophobia, and Interventionism, Honors
Abigail Learner, A Socio-Political and Economic Analysis of the Transition to Custodial Mental Institutionalization in Late 19th and Early 20th Century America, Honors
Angelo Mahaffey, Neorealism and Post WW2 Italy, High Honors
Sarah Raab, Cut From A Different Cloth: The History of Female Surgeons in 20th Century America, High Honors
Chloe Selover, An Analysis of Folk Practices of the East Coast and the Delegitimization of Folk Medicine throughout the Nineteenth Century, High Honors
2020-2021
Laura Horner, Internal Conflicts of Opium in China, Honors
Joshua Saeger, They Knew Nothing but to Weigh Gold and Eat Rice - Analysis of British Public Opinion Towards China from the Late Eighteenth to Early Nineteenth Centuries, and the Rise of Information Hegemons, Honors
Ezekiel Timen, Funny Man: Performances of Masculine Identities in Dancehall Music from Late 20th Century Jamaica, High Honors
2019-2020
Quentin Bernhard, An Ideology of Their Own Making: Abolitionism and the American Liberal, Civic Republican, and Biblical Traditions, Highest Honors
Taylor Garrison, What's Love Got To Do With It: Courtship in Antebellum America, Highest Honors
Emily Hamme, Comparison and Contrast between the Trelawney Maroons and the Mi'kmaq First Nation and between the Black Seminoles and Seminole Amerindians: 1700-1800, High Honors
Sara Levene, L'dor V'dor: The Intergenerational Evolution of a Family Owned Business: The Story of the Nay Aug Amusement Park, Honors
Cundao Li, The Creation of a Sage Ruler, High Honors
2018-2019
Stuart Bibeau, Progressive Patriarchy: A Radical Feminist Reading of The English Patient in British Culture, Honors
Michaela Feinberg, Youth and the Katangese Nationalist Movement, Highest Honors
Thomas Lemons, A Comparative Study on the Events and Effects of the Vietnam War and Soviet-Afghan War, High Honors
Justin Revel, The Emergence of a New Pro-German Danish War Memory in Land of Mine (2015), Highest Honors
