Department of HistorySummer 2015 deans about paths to take. Our From the 2014-2015 Department students were equally successful in Chair, Daniel Smail completing dissertations and honors As I write this in the heat of a July theses and garnering awards, jobs, afternoon, the snows of yesteryear positions, and many grants and have receded from memory and the fellowships. To survey the titles of Yard is filled instead with summer- our dissertations and theses is to be school students and great drifts of amazed not only by the diversity of tourists. Most of our faculty and themes, spanning time and place, also students are off teaching or pursuing by the restless ambition and energy of the authors. Outgoing Department research projects or internships in places all over the world. For those Chair (2014-2015) In the fall of 2014, we welcomed two Daniel Smail who remain, Widener is now at its new colleagues to the ranks of the best, for the summer brings with it time to read and to explore at junior faculty. Elizabeth Hinton leisure, and the dreaded words (History and AAAS), a scholar of “Checked out: due 02/10/16” are U.S. African-American and urban few and far between as you browse history, joined us after two years at the catalog. In September, the the Michigan Society of Fellows. department will become its Genevieve Clutario (History and animated self again as faculty and History & Literature) did not students return with energies officially begin her appointment as a renewed and new things to learn and historian of gender and culture until July of 2015, but we were delighted teach, but for now, all is quiet, apart that she could join us as a College Incoming Department from the occasional noise drifting up Fellow for the year and teach two Chair (2015-2016) from the renovation of the first floor courses in the spring. In a few weeks, David Armitage seminar rooms. the department will be enriched by the Director of Administration The year just past was as busy and arrival of three new ladder faculty: Ann Kaufman active as ever, even for those who Sidney Chalhoub, who will take up a weren’t shoveling snow in the senior position in Brazilian history; Newsletter Editor depths of January and February. If Arunabh Ghosh (PhD Columbia, Kimberly O’Hagan there were moments of sadness and 2014), our new junior colleague in loss there were also many shining Chinese history; and Jane Kamensky, moments for the department as a who will be the Faculty Director of whole and for the individuals among the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe Department of History us, students, staff, and faculty alike. as well as a senior historian of U.S. Harvard University Members of the faculty were invited Women and Gender. Distinguished Robinson Hall to give distinguished lectures all visitors for the coming year will 35 Quincy Street over the globe. They garnered include Khaled Fahmy (American Cambridge, MA 02138 awards and fellowships, sparked University in Cairo) in Middle http://history.fas.harvard.edu/ vigorous debates, ran seminars, Eastern history, Brett Walker launched new research projects, (Montana State) in Japanese history, Inside published books, articles, opinion and Christopher Loveluck From the Chair................................. 1 pieces, digital archive projects, and (Nottingham) in medieval European Faculty News ................................... 4 writings of many different kinds, history and archaeology. Elizabeth Undergraduate News ....................... 9 and spent countless hours teaching More (PhD Harvard, 2012) has joined Graduate News .............................. 13 and working with undergraduate and the Undergraduate Office as the Alumni News ................................. 16 graduate students or consulting with Assistant Director of Undergraduate 1 Studies, and Holger Droessler (PhD department hum along. Laura Assistant DUS, Heidi Tworek will be Harvard, 2015) will be our College Christoffels, who came to us in moving on to a tenure-track position Fellow in U.S. history. Catherine April as our Web and Media at the University of British Columbia. Warner (PhD Univ. Washington, Coordinator, implemented a We will greatly miss her energy and 2014), finally, will be coming as a redesign of our website that enthusiasm. College Fellow in South Asian history, captures the department’s joint with South Asian Studies. Please dynamism and vibrancy. Our Even as we change and grow, we are join me in welcoming our new Graduate Coordinator, Dan also diminished. The spring of 2015 colleagues and visitors this fall! Bertwell, started in June and is saw the retirements of Robert Darnton therefore the young kid on the block (Carl H. Pforzheimer University We also undertook a search in Modern when it comes to the second floor of Professor and Director of the Jewish History and a targeted search in Robinson, but has now mastered the University Library), Patrice Higonnet Byzantine History and hope to have complex rhythms of our graduate (Robert Walton Goelet Professor of good news to report on the outcomes program. Change is good. But French History), and Steven Ozment of those two searches very soon. We change is not everything, and the (McLean Professor of Ancient & were delighted to add to our luster by department would not be what it is Modern History). Their departures welcoming several Harvard without the continuing presence of will leave holes that can never quite colleagues—Sunil Amrith (South Mary McConnell, Laura Johnson, be filled. Although we knew that Asian Studies) and Tomiko Brown- and Cory Paulsen. Whenever I Mark Kishlansky had not been in Nagin (Harvard Law School)—as contemplate the work of the staff, I good health for some time, his death jointly appointed members of the am struck by the countless hours in May of 2015 was sudden and department, and several more they put into making things happen. unexpected; even so, there was time appointments are currently in the When the work is done well, the in the last weeks for many of his works. As I think about the new hours and dedication that go into it students, friends, and admirers to dimensions in scholarship and teaching often become invisible, so let us have a chance to visit him. Our that will be added in this way, I am take this occasion to remember how thoughts are with his family, friends, reminded of how history is at the core much our amazing staff contributed and students both past and present. If of the intellectual practices of many to the successes of the past year. you wish to celebrate a life in history, colleagues scattered all across read Mark’s recently published book Harvard’s campus. The new year will bring, once again, Charles I: An Abbreviated Life a wholesale change in departmental (London, 2014). Finally, Edward As David Armitage reported in this leadership, as David returns as chair Keenan, emeritus professor of space last year, there was just as much and as Ann Blair and Alison medieval Russian history, died in continuity and change among the staff Johnson take up the positions, March of 2015. Ned had retired in last year. Ann Kaufman has now been respectively, of Director of 2008 after a distinguished career of with us for a year and a half and has Undergraduate Studies and Director scholarship and service, including the done wonders filling the shoes of Janet of Graduate Studies. In Ann’s case, directorship of the Dumbarton Oaks Hatch, our long-serving Department she is now returning for a second Research Library and College from Administrator who retired at the stint as DUS (thank you Ann!). We 1998 to 2007. Our condolences to his beginning of 2014. Ann’s latest wish them the very best in these wife Judy and their family. triumph, among many, has been to vital roles. In 2014-15, the oversee a complete renovation of the undergraduate program was In the fall, we celebrated the practice ground-floor seminar rooms in illuminated by Ian Miller’s year of of history itself at our annual panel Robinson Hall. Kimberly O’Hagan, dedicated service as DUS, and discussion “History is Everything/ who joined us as Faculty Coordinator Nancy Cott, similarly, poured her Everything is History.” Our February in May of 2014, managed the logistics energy and vision into the graduate seminar, “How Are States Violent?”, of three complex searches with program as DGS. Many thanks to chaired by Mary Lewis, featured exemplary efficiency and attentiveness both Nancy and Ian for their reflections on the politics of violence and did much else besides to make the service. After three years as our by Emmanuel Akyeampong, 2 Elizabeth Hinton, and David Howell. college-wide prizes. Tempus, the York, 2014); Peter Gordon (et al., Our seminar series for the year closed Harvard College History Review, eds.), The Trace of God: Derrida and with a panel discussion “Revisiting likewise had a busy and productive Religion (New York, 2015); Tamar the State,” with remarks by William year. Warm congratulations are due Herzog, Frontiers of Possession: Kirby, Charles Maier, Lisa McGirr, to all of our fifty-three AB Spain and Portugal in Europe and the and Tamar Herzog, chaired by Nancy recipients. Americas (Cambridge, Mass., 2015); Cott. In addition to these Patrice Higonnet, Le Village des departmental events, faculty and Eleven of our graduate students Fanatiques (Paris, 2014); Mark students were involved in seminars, completed their doctorates within Kishlansky, Charles I: An workshops, conferences, and the past year, and all have moved on Abbreviated Life (London, 2014); Jill symposia that take place on a weekly to positions for the coming year. Lepore, The Secret History of Wonder basis all over campus. The The dissertation prospectus Woman (New York, 2014); Erez department’s reputation as one of the conference, which took place in late Manela (et al., eds.) Empires at War: leading centers for digital innovation January, once again put on display 1911-1923 (Oxford, 2014); Samuel on campus continues to grow, thanks the extraordinary range of brilliant Moyn, Human Rights and the Uses of to the substantial grant we received and innovative scholarship that is a History (London, 2014); Serhii last year from the Harvard Initiative hallmark of the program.