Faculty and Student Publications and Awards

The Department of History at UChicago is a vibrant intellectual community renowned for cutting-edge research and expansive scope of expertise. These qualities are reflected in the 2023 faculty and student publications, awards, and contributions to history. Although this list is not exhaustive, it reflects the many accomplishments of members of the department. We are proud of all their achievements and look forward to celebrating their continued success.

Cliff Ando co-edited the first volume, A Cultural History of Ideas in Classical Antiquity, in the 6-volume series, A Cultural History of Ideas, published by Bloomsbury. 

Leora Auslander won a 2023 Quantrell Award for excellence in undergraduate teaching.

John W. Boyer published Austria, 1867-1955 in the series Oxford History of Modern Europe (Oxford University Press). It was named a Notable Book of 2023 by the Seminary Co-op. 

Mark Philip Bradley was awarded the George E. Bogaars Visiting Professorship in History at the National University of Singapore for 2024-25.  He gave the Harvey Goldberg Memorial Lecture at the University of Wisconsin in January 2023 titled “Southern Culture as Global Culture: The Rise of the Global South and the Transformation of the Global Cultural Order” and convened an international symposium titled “Art as Historical Method” at the National Gallery of Singapore in February 2023.  Bradley received an award from the American Association of University Presses for the redesign of the American Historical Review, which he edits. 

Elizabeth Chatterjee’s article “The Poor Women’s Energy: Low-Modernist Solar Technologies and International Development, 1878–1966” was published in the Journal of Global History (open access). She also published a short contemporary piece, “India’s Oligarchic State Capitalism,” in Current History (April 2023).

Jane Dailey was named the Editor-in-Chief of the Oxford Research Encyclopedia in American History.

Yuting Dong's project "Mapping Neighborhoods in Japan’s Empire: A Digital Humanities Project on Infrastructure’s Socio-Political Influences" has been selected as an awardee for the CISSR 2024-25 Faculty Research Fellowship.

Rachel Fulton Brown's Tolkien Class was celebrated as a "Favorite UChicago Course." She also published a book of her student's poetry, Writing Christian Poetry. 

Alice Goff published The God Behind the Marble: The Fate of Art in the German Aesthetic State with The University of Chicago Press in January 2024. Her project, "The Afterlives of Church Bells in Postwar Germany," has been selected as an awardee for the CISSR 2024-25 Faculty Research Fellowship.

Ramón Gutiérrez published New Mexico’s Moses: Reies López Tijerina and the Religious Origins of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement, University of New Mexico Press.

Mary Hicks appeared in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts' Dutch and Flemish Art Gallerys as a featured speaker on "The Hidden Cost of Luxury" and will be appearing in the Netflix Series African Queens: Njinga, which premieres in mid-February.

Aaron Jakes is a recipient of an NEH Public Scholars fellowship and is collaborating on a Neubauer Collegium Faculty Research Project titled "Hidden Abodes of the “Great Acceleration”: Fossil Metabolism, Infrastructure, and the Climate/Nature Crisis."

Adrian Johns published The Science of Reading: Information, Media, and Mind in Modern America (2023, University of Chicago Press), which was recognized as a Notable Book of 2023 by the Seminary Co-op. He also published Beyond Craft and Code: Human and Algorithmic Cultures, Past and Present edited with James Evans (Osiris 38, 2023. University of Chicago Press). He recently offered a recorded online talk at UIUC titled "The Science of Reading and the Making of the Information Society." 

Rashauna Johnson has been elected Vice President of the Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora (ASWAD). She will serve a two-year term (2023-25). She has also been appointed to the Organization of American Historians (OAH) Distinguished Lectureship Program.

Fredrik Albritton Jonsson and Carl Wennerlind published Scarcity: a History from the Origins of Capitalism to the Climate Crisis (Harvard University Press, 2023).

Emily M. Kern, Alison Bashford, and Adam Bobbette's book, New Earth Histories: Geo-Cosmologies and the Making of the Modern World was published by the University of Chicago Press, in November 2023. The book's forward is by Dipesh Chakrabarty.

Matthew Kruer’s chapter, “Indigenous Subjecthood and White Populism in the British Empire” in Ideology and U.S. Foreign Relations: New Histories, edited by Christopher McKnight Nichols and David Milne was published by Columbia University Press. The book won the Joseph Fletcher Prize for Best Edited Book in Historical International Relations. He also delivered the annual William and Mary Quarterly lecture, "“Colonial Anarchy, Indigenous Power” in February 2024.

Jonathan Lyon’s book Corruption, Protection and Justice in Medieval Europe: A Thousand-Year History was released in the UK in 2022 and in the United States in 2023 (Cambridge University Press) an he was named the inaugural Sorin and Imran Siddiqui Professor. He is also a CISSR Faculty Fellow.

Kenneth Moss book, Jewish Renaissance in the Russian Revolution (Harvard, 2009), was revised and translated into Hebrew in January 2023 as Yemei ha-maasim: tehiyat ha-tarbut ha-yehudit be-tkufat ha-mahapekhah ha-rusit (Merkaz Zalman Shazar). He also published an edited volume with his co-editor Israel Bartal,  The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, v. 7: National Renaissance and International Horizons, 1880-1918, (Yale, 2023).

Ada Palmer gave the Nuveen Lecture for the Divinity School in October of 2023. She also did consulting work for Microsoft about the future of AI and her historical science fiction novel series Terra Ignota (Tor Books, 2016-2021) won the 2023 Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire award for Best Foreign Novel translated into French.

Kenneth Pomeranz published an extended review essay, reviewing Debin Ma and Richard Von Glahn, eds., The Cambridge Economic History of China, Volume 2 to the Present in the Journal of Chinese History 7:1 (January 2023).

Johanna Ransmeier won a CISSR Faculty Fellowship for the 2023-2024 academic year. 

Michael Rossi is collaborating on a Neubauer Collegium Faculty Research Project titled "The Diversity of Color: Safeguarding Natural Dye Sources and Practices in Michoacán and Oaxaca."

James Sparrow won a 2023 Quantrell Award for excellence in undergraduate teaching. 

Mauricio Tenorio was appointed the Gustavus F. and Ann M. Swift Distinguished Service Professor, The University of Chicago. He published “Review Essay: Conceitos and Conceptos: The Wight of Words in the Iberian World,” Journal of the History of Ideas, vol. 85, no. 2 (April 2024), pp. 389-417, “Las puntas del iceberg,” Nexos (January 2024), and “De fósiles e Inteligencia Artificial,” Nexos (November 2023). He also delivered the Hackett Lecture at the University of Texas, Austin, February 2024, "Reconsidering the Old Question: History, What For?" His book Elogio de la impureza was reviewed in Mexico´s literary jounrnal Letras Libres (November, 2023) as was La historia en ruinas, also reviewed in Letras Libres (March, 2024).

Professor Emeritus Bernard Wasserstein published A Small Town in Ukraine: The Place We Came From, The Place We Went Back To with Penguin Random House in February 2023.

Tara Zahra published Against the World: Anti-Globalism and Mass Politics between the World Wars, W.W. Norton & Co. in 2023. The book was recognized by the Financial Times as one of the Best Books of 2023 - History and a Notable Book of 2023 by the Seminary Co-op. Prof. Zarah was also named the Hanna Holborn Gray Professor.

Zachary Barr’s article, “Ernst Mach's Popular Science," was published in Isis, Vol. 114 No. 3.

Alex Jania's new course, "How to Build a Memorial," was awarded a College Curriculum Innovation Fund Award from the Social Science Collegiate Division and the Division of the Social Sciences. This generous grant will help fund Field Site visits as well as the construction of the final collective memorial project by the end of the quarter.

Peggy O'Donnell Heffington's book WITHOUT CHILDREN: The Long History of Not Being a Mother was published in April by Seal Press/Basic Books. It received a starred review in Booklist, as well as positive reviews in Washington Post Book Reviews and San Francisco Chronicle, and was named a "most anticipated book" by the New York Times. Her book made the list of the Washington Post's 50 notable works of nonfiction for 2023. Peggy also contributed guest essays to the New York Times, Washington Post, TIME, and elsewhere, and was featured as a live guest on national NPR, WBEZ, and KERA.

Nicholas O’Neill received the Natalie Zemon Davis Award from the Society for French Historical Studies for his paper, “Accounting for Taste: Consumption, Value, and the Adoption of Double-Entry Bookkeeping.” 

Eunhee Park published "Morbid Spectacle”: Allegorical Dialectics of Mammonism, Humanity, and Necropower in Squid Game (2021)" in the International Journal of Asian Studies in January 2024, 1-15. She has a second article, "South Korean Housewives’ Emerging Economic Authority and Contestation of Domesticity during the Cold War Era," Gender and History forthcoming in July 2024. 

Alina Shokareva translated the Russian Nobility in the Age of Alexander I by Patrick O'Meara into Russian. It was published this spring as О’Мара П. Русское дворянство времен Александра I / Патрик О’Мара. Перевод с английского Алина Шокарева. - Москва: Новое литературное обозрение, 2023. - 520 с. - (Серия: Historia Rossica).

Michael Williams published “The Aporetic Humanism of Early Derrida” in Philosophy and Social Criticism, Vol. 49, Issue 7.

Xavier Samuel Ante is a CISSR Lloyd & Susanne Rudolph Field Research Fellow. 

Boone J. Ayala is a CISSR Lloyd & Susanne Rudolph Field Research Fellow.

Leila Blackbird’s article “‘It Has Always Been Customary to Make Slaves of Savages’: The Problem of Indian Slavery in Spanish Louisiana Revisited, 1769-1803” was published in The William & Mary Quarterly Vol. 80, No. 3 (July 2023).

Xiaoyu Gao, a fourth-year PhD candidate, received several grants to conduct archival research in the UK, Mainlain China, and Taiwan. Four grants are internal (two CEAS grants; Nicholson Center; and CISSR) and one is an external competitive fellowship, the AAS-Gale Fellowship. 

Kit Ginzky won the Carel B. Germain Fellowship from Smith College Special Collections and the Clarke Chambers Fellowship from the University of Minnesota Social Welfare History Archive, both of which will fund her dissertation research. She also co-organized the 2023 Lauren Berlant Graduate Student Conference, "Power over Life and Death: Feminism, Abolition, and the State," at the Chicago Center for Contemporary Theory and co-edited an annotated bibliography on "Red Scares, Political Repression, and Social Work," published by the Social Welfare History Group in January. 

Gabriel Groz received the Cambridge University Press Dissertation Fellowship from the Economic History Association, a Mellon Foundation Short-Term Research Grant from the Huntington Library, and a Graduate Research Fellowship from the Beinecke Library.  

Elizabeth Hines received three external research fellowships: Florida Atlantic University-Huntington Library Collaborative Short-Term Fellowship, Lapidus-Omohundro Institute Fellowship for Graduate Research in Early American Print Culture, and New England Regional Fellowship Consortium. She has also accepted a postdoctoral fellowship for 2024-6, the Ax:son Johnson Institute for Statecraft and Diplomacy Postdoctoral Fellowship, Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs, School of Advanced International Studies from Johns Hopkins University.

Syrus Jin was awarded the SHAFR Samuel Flagg Bemis Dissertation Research Grant and is a recipient of the National Fellowship from the Jefferson Scholars Foundation. This fellowship provides a $30,000 stipend for two years. 

Nic Johnson published "The Imperial Fed" in Phenomenal World and "Times of Interest" in New Left Review. 

Emma Kitchen co-authored an article, "Revealing the Rise of a Living Fossil Menagerie," in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution with Scott Lidgard.

Fiona Maxwell is the recipient of the Deborah Mesch Fellowship and the Anna Award from the Center for Women's History and Leadership for her dedication to the organization. Her article, “Site of Social Justice Advocacy, or Home of Godly Women? Interpreting Women’s Work at the Frances Willard House Museum” was published in a special issue of Collections: A Journal for Museum and Archives Professionals on "Women and Museums," Vol. 20 Issue 1. She also has a manuscript accepted for publication in Gender & History. The article is titled, "'Expression is Power': Gender, Residual Culture, and Political Aspiration at the Cumnock School of Oratory, 1870-1900."

Yasser Ali Nasser published, "'To Defend the Peace of Asia’: The Chinese Peace Committee and Visions of Asian History, 1949-60,” Cold War History. He has accepted an offer from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville to be an Assistant Professor of Modern Chinese History beginning Fall 2024.

Natalia Niedmann Alvarez published "From the Rule of Law to a Rule of Rights: Political Theory – Public Law – Enlightenment – Rule of Law – Public Sphere" in the International Journal of Human Rights, vol. 26 no. 9, 1503-1521.

Stephanie Painter was selected by The Midwest Conference on Asian Affairs to present her paper, “What She Had: Property, Work, and the Imperative of Autonomy for Wives in the Qing," at the 2023 Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference in Boston as part of the Council of Conferences Designated Panel.

Kate Reed co-edited a volume with Marcia C. Schenck of the University of Potsdam titled The Right to Research: Historical Narratives by Refugee and Global South Researchers, published by McGill-Queen’s University Press.

Chloe Brettmann won a Boren Scholarship to study French in Senegal.

Sophie Feng won a Boren Scholarship to study Mandarin in Taiwan. 

Alice Tay was awarded a Yenching Scholarship to support at least the first year of a two-year Master’s in China Studies at Peking University. 

Elizabeth Zazycki won a Boren Scholarship to study Hindi in India and was a recipeint of the India, Fulbright-Nehru English Teaching Assistant Award.

In a course with Professor Fulton Brown, several history majors wrote poetry that has since been published as Writing Christian Poetry, edited by Rachel Fulton Brown.