- Department of History

News & FEATURES

Upcoming Conferences and Collaborations

History Students Honored at Chancellor’s Awards Ceremony

Recognition for Wanda Wallace, Retiring History Department Undergraduate Coordinator

Five History Majors Win SURFS Fellowships to Pursue Summer Research

Jacquelyn Dowd Hall Selected for Mary Turner Lane Award

Molly Worthen Shares Insights about American Perspectives on Immigrants

Fitz Brundage and History Students Create Digital “Commemorative Landscapes of North Carolina”

Announcement of Graduate Student Honors and Achievements, 2012–2013

Global History

Global history emphasizes the study of processes that transcend regions, nations, and even any single civilization. These processes include colonialism and imperialism, nationalism, international relations, environment, religion, ideologies, labor, migration/diaspora, industrialization, peace and war, science and technology, slavery, and more. Read more...
European History

Faculty members in the area of European History guide an exciting and challenging academic curriculum building on a legacy of excellence in areas of Medieval and Early Modern History, French History, English History, Italian and Mediterranean History, and German and Central European history. Read more...
Asian History

The research and teaching interests of the Asian history faculty include the region’s pre-modern histories, transformation in more recent times, business and economic developments, social and cultural formations, gender relations, experience with colonialism and nationalism, and relations with the United States and other parts of the world. Read more...
Ancient History

Ancient History encompasses social, administrative, economic, legal, religious and intellectual history, along with political and military developments, in the Greek and Roman Mediterranean world from 1000 BCE to 500 CE broadly speaking. Read more...
African History

The Department of History offers a range of classes on African history from the pre-modern period to the present. While all classes treat the political, economic, and cultural forces that have shaped sub-Saharan Africa from within, Africanist faculty members place an equal emphasis on the fundamental ways such internal processes have affected patterns of global history. Read more...
Women's and Gender History

Women's and Gender History is a strong and flourishing area at Chapel Hill. The field is broadly defined, intersects with the interests of a large number of faculty members, and is thoroughly integrated into the culture of the department. Read more...
Russian and East European History

Russian and Soviet history offers a broad look at modern Russian history of the Imperial and Soviet eras. Subjects include Russia’s Eurasian Empire, the Russian Revolution, nineteenth-century culture and identity, the Soviet Union since 1929, women in Russian history, and a variety of other topics. Read more...
United States History

The study of United States History is strong in virtually all periods. Our broad expertise in social and cultural history is complemented by specialization in African American, Native American history, military and international history, constitutional history, economic and business history, and gender and women’s history. Read more...
Military History

The University of North Carolina’s History Department has long been a leading force in the academic study of military history, conceived broadly as ranging from battlefield to ballot box, from home front to high altitude bombing. Read more...
Latin American History

The program in Latin American history has a well established tradition, with library resources and institutional support to match. The field has great strengths in South American, Central American, and Caribbean history, stretching from sixteenth-century Peru to modern and contemporary Cuba. Read more...

Lawson Kuehnert (B.A. 2013) garnered the E. Eugene Jackson Award, given annually to the member of the graduating class whose leadership and selfless dedication have strengthened class pride and University loyalty, enriched the lives of seniors, and made a significant contribution to the University. Kuehnert was the inaugural managing editor of the award-winning traces, a student journal of history.

Xaris Martinex, a Ph.D. student, received a Student Undergraduate Teaching Award. These awards were established to recognize outstanding undergraduate instruction by both faculty and teaching assistants. A committee of students reviewed the teaching nominations on the basis of demonstrated and consistent teaching excellence, success in positively affecting a broad spectrum of students both in and outside the classroom, and creation of a dynamic learning environment.

Wanda Wallace is one of this year’s winners of an Employee Forum Peer Recognition Award for exceptional service to the University. She was nominated by people who have worked with her over the years in the category of “Back Office Activities,” which may suggest less visibility than she has actually had in our department! Wanda retired at the end of May after 13 years of outstanding service in managing the department’s undergraduate program, relations with the registrar’s office, course scheduling, graduation events, and the history honor society (Phi Alpha Theta), as well as the University’s chapter of Phi Beta Kappa and much else.

Wanda was honored at the Peer Recognition Awards Ceremony on Thursday, May 30, 3:00-5:00 p.m., in the Hyde Hall University Room. All were welcome to attend this event, which took place on the day before Wanda’s last day of work.

Congratulations to Aislinn Klos, Grace Tatter, Elizabeth Tolleson, Eric Walston, and Michael Welker, who will spend will spend the summer engaged in research, thanks to 2013 Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships (SURFs) awarded by the Office for Undergraduate Research. SURF award recipients receive at least $3,000. Funding for the SURF program comes from many sources including Honors Carolina, the Cancer Center, Carolina First campaign, and the Carolina Parents Council. Successful applicants are also expected to present their research at UNC’s annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research held in April.

Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, the Julia Cherry Spruill Professor of History and founding director of Carolina’s Southern Oral History Program, has won the 2013 Mary Turner Lane Award. The award citation noted that, “By her scholarship, Hall changed the very concept of history, developing the methodology and best practices of a new kind of history that incorporates the experiences of women and workers and minorities into understanding the past.” Read more . . .

Molly Worthen‘s “Love Thy Stranger as Thyself” appeared in the Sunday New York Times (5/12/2013). Her essay situates the current attitudes and debates about immigration reform in their historical and religious context.

A new UNC digital collection, Commemorative Landscapes of North Carolina (CommLand), is creating a portrait of the state’s history through monuments, shrines and public art. W. Fitzhugh Brundage, pictured at left in front of the Thomas Wolfe Monument on the Carolina campus, is featured in the College of Arts & Sciences web site piece by Kim Weaver Spurr. Read it here: “Mapping Historical Memory: New digital collection documents the state’s history through monuments, shrines, public art”

Announcements of honors, achievements, and position placements for our graduate students are still coming in! Find the latest list here.

*See the Latest Faculty Books HERE

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1 War, Demobilization and Memory: The Legacy of War in the Era of Atlantic Revolutions

6 The Medieval Papacy: Religion & Politics in Christian Europe

War, Demobilization and Memory: The Legacy of War in the Era of Atlantic Revolutions
London, May 30–June 1, 2013