PhD'23 (US history), University of Chicago
RESEARCH INTERESTS
History of capitalism in the twentieth-century United States; history of ideas; the impact of financialization on US politics, society, and culture
DISSERTATION
Country on Fire: The Virtuous Producer in the Era of Finance Capitalism
PhD '24 (East Asia – Japan), University of Chicago
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Modern Japan; Modern China; East Asian Transnational History; Japanese Colonial Empire; Japanese Diaspora; Sino-Japanese Relations; Urban History; History of Shanghai
DISSERTATION
Re-colonizing Shanghai: The Japanese Settlement in a Chinese Treaty Port, 1895-1937
PUBLICATIONS
"Negotiating Extra-settlement Roads: Boundary Making, Administrative Disputes, and Power Shifts in Treaty-port Shanghai, 1860–1937," Modern Asian Studies, Open Access, May 27, 2024.
“Homeward Bound: The Postwar Repatriation of Japanese Civilians in Shanghai, 1945-1948,” The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, Volume 18, Issue 23, December 1, 2020.
NEWS
—Awarded Buchanan Prize by Midwest Conference on Asian Affairs
DISSERTATION
The Byzantine Empire's Themes: A Geographical Approach
RESEARCH INTERESTS
History of political thought; intellectual history; medieval papacy; medieval Italy
DISSERTATION
Making and Knowing in the 19th Century Gorkhali Polity
RESEARCH INTERESTS
U.S. History, 1800 to Present; History of Democracy and Public Discourse; Theatre and Arts Education; Progressive Reform; Gender; Immigration; Chicago and the Midwest; Urban History and Culture; History of the Book.
DISSERTATION
Democratic Ensembles: Spoken Art and Politics at Chicago Settlement Houses, 1890-1920
BIOGRAPHY
As Assistant Director of Graduate Career Development at UChicagoGRAD, Fiona is a dedicated career advisor for University of Chicago graduate students in the Humanities and Social Sciences. In addition to supporting professional development programming, she specializes in public speaking and writing coaching and contributes to GRAD’s Communication Lab.
Fiona’s historical research investigates how Progressive Era Chicagoans used the spoken arts—including drama, storytelling, oratory, and debate—to rehearse a participatory civic culture. She is currently developing her first monograph, Democratic Ensembles: Spoken Art and Politics at Chicago Settlement Houses, 1890-1920. Drawing on her background in urban history and ensemble-based improvisational theatre, she collaborates with campus centers and nonprofit organizations on program design and content development, and she writes and performs original and adapted storytelling pieces.
PUBLICATIONS
“‘Talking lowd and laughing gay, Everyone has so much to say’: Working Girls’ Clubs, Spoken Art and Political Organising at Chicago Settlement Houses, 1890–1920,” Lilith: A Feminist History Journal (2025): 109-130.
“‘Expression is Power’: Gender, Residual Culture, and Political Aspiration at the Cumnock School of Oratory, 1870-1900.” Gender & History (2024).
“Site of Social Justice Advocacy, or Home of Godly Women? Interpreting Women’s Work at the Frances Willard House Museum.” Collections: A Journal for Museum and Archives Professionals (2024). Focus Issue: “Women and Museums,” edited by Juilee Decker, guest edited by Holly O’Farrell and Alice Twemlow.
“The Old and the New: Immigrant Women and Intergenerational Connection at the Hull- House Labor Museum.” In Radical Craft: Arts Education at Hull-House, 1889-1935. Chicago: Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, 2024. Exhibition catalog essay.
Collins, Rives B. and Maxwell, Fiona G. “Tell it with Zest: The Generative Influence of
Storytelling on the Origins of Creative Drama.” Youth Theatre Journal 31, no. 1 (2017): 23-34.
AWARDS
Benjamin Bloom Dissertation Fellowship from the Division of the Social Sciences
The Anna Award, Recognizing Extraordinary Service and Dedication to the Center for Women’s History and Leadership
Debra Mesch Doctoral Fellowship for Research on Women's Philanthropy
INVITED TALK
“‘Expression is Power’: Chicago Settlement Houses, the Cumnock School of Oratory, and the Progressive Era Prehistory of Creative Drama.” Winifred Ward Symposium, Northwestern University, June 1, 2024.
PODCASTS
“Club Newspapers and Civic Collaboration at Chicago Settlement Houses.” C19: The Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists Podcast. Season 8, Episode 3. October 21, 2024.
CONFERENCE PAPERS
“‘We Women Would Rule the World of Politics’: Women’s Oratory and Activism at Chicago Settlement Houses, 1890-1920.” Chicago Women’s History Conference 2025: Past & Present Strategies to Advance the Rights of Women, Chicago, IL, March 22, 2025.
“‘A Continuous Story’: Intergenerational Education and Community Organizing at Chicago Settlement Houses, 1890-1920.” Organization of Educational Historians Conference, September 27, 2024.
“‘Just a Bunch of Merry Maids’: Girls’ Play and Politics at Chicago Settlement Houses, 1890-1920.” Girlhood Studies Collective Symposium, “The Mundanity of Girlhood: Pleasure, Play, and the Everyday,” Rutgers University-Camden, Camden, New Jersey, April 4, 2024.
“‘Upward with Aspiring Aim’: Working Girls’ Clubs, Spoken Art, and Political Aspiration at Chicago Settlement Houses, 1890-1920.” Gender and Joy in Feminist History Symposium, Australian Catholic University, Melbourne, Australia, September 28, 2023.
"'Each Member a Reporter': Youth Participants, Club Newspapers, and Collaborative Democracy at Chicago Settlement Houses, 1890-1920." Society for the History of Childhood and Youth Conference, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada, June 8-10, 2023.
"'Expression is Power': Gender, Speaking, and Parlor Democracy at the Cumnock School of Oratory, 1871-1901." British Association for American Studies Conference, Keele University, Keele, England, April 13, 2023.
"Site of Feminist Activism, or Home of 'Godly Women'? Opposing Interpretive Visions for the Frances Willard House Museum." Women and Museum Collections Conference, Leiden University, Leiden, Netherlands, March 18, 2022.
"From Chicago Settlement Houses to the Zoom Room: Process-Oriented Youth Drama, Social Democracy, and Building Ensemble in Times of Crisis." Performing Childhoods Conference, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand, November 25, 2021.
"Bringing Literature to Life: Literary Performance in Post-Civil War Evanston." Conference on Illinois History, Springfield, IL, October 8, 2021.
"Training for Social Democracy: Elocutionary Education, Parlor Culture, and the Beginning of the Chicago Settlement House Movement, 1870-1900." Organization of Educational Historians Conference, October 2, 2021.
MEDIA APPEARANCE
“Chicago’s last Phyllis Wheatley House in Washington Park in danger of demolition.” Invited television interview for ABC7 Chicago, February 3, 2021.
COURSE DESIGN AND CO-TEACHING
Performing Democracy (Autumn 2022). New undergraduate History and Theatre and Performance Studies course co-designed and co-taught with Professor Jane Dailey.
PUBLIC SCHOLARSHIP
Research Consultant, Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, Radical Craft: Arts Education at Hull-House, 1889-1935.
Designs and leads "Improv and Democracy" workshops and women's suffrage bus tours for the Chicago Center on Democracy.
SELECTED BLOG POSTS
“Opening the Door to Knowledge: Frances Willard’s College Days.” Center for Women's History and Leadership Blog. November 3, 2022.
“Knowledge is Power: Frances Willard’s Early Education.” Center for Women's History and Leadership Blog. August 21, 2022.
“‘Look Up and Off, and On and Out’: Frances Willard and Women’s Oratory.” Center for Women's History and Leadership Blog. August 31, 2021.
“The Activism and Artistry of Frances Ellen Watkins Harper.” Center for Women's History and Leadership Blog. July 24, 2020.
STORYTELLING PERFORMANCES
“Stories from the Labor Museum.” Open House Chicago, Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, October 19-20, 2024.
“Childhood, Friendship, and Memory.” DePaul University, January 22, 2023; Northeastern Illinois University, May 1, 2023.
“Chicago Storytelling in Bughouse Square.” Newberry Library, July 30, 2022.
“A Pleasant Sunday Afternoon: Recreating a Nineteenth-Century Literary and Musical Entertainment.” Center for Women’s History and Leadership, July 25, 2021.
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Britain and the Netherlands; imperialism; economic and political history; religion and religious toleration
DISSERTATION
Anglo-Dutch Commerce, Religion, and War, 1634-1652
AWARDS
- Michael Kraus Research Grant in American Colonial History, American Historical Association
- Henry Kaufman Financial History Research Fellowship, Business History Conference
- Esther Ann McFarland Fellowship, Historical Society of Pennsylvania
- Research and Publication Bursary, Society for Court Studies
- Postgraduate Research Grant from the Cromwell Association
- Florida Atlantic University-Huntington Library Collaborative Short-Term Fellowship
- Lapidus-Omohundro Institute Fellowship for Graduate Research in Early American Print Culture
- New England Regional Fellowship Consortium
- Pacific Coast Conference on British Studies (PCCBS) Graduate Student Prize for the best conference paper
- American Trust for the British Library-New York Public Library Transatlantic Fellowship
- Charles W. Wendell Research Grant from the New Netherland Institute
- Bell Library Short-Term Fellowship from the University of Minnesota
- Student Research Fellowship from the Meeter Center for Calvin Studies at Calvin University
Elizabeth Hines has 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.
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Migration; Labor; Latinx/e History; Mexico; Borderland Development; Legal Informality; Agricultural Work
DISSERTATION
Alien Residents: Immigration, Informal Law, and the Fall of the New Deal Order
AWARDS
Named a National Jeffersonian Scholar (2024)
PhD '24 (History of Science), University of Chicago
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Rise of the Human Sciences; Studies of Secularity; Engagement between Science and Religion; History of Modern France; History of Science, Seventeenth through Nineteenth Centuries; Social and Political Contexts of Knowledge Production
BIOGRAPHY
Arthur Clement is a historian of science and intellectual historian of Modern Europe. He specializes in the trajectory of secularity in nineteenth-century France, the engagement between science and religion, and history of the human sciences. His dissertation, entitled “Secularity and the Institutionalization of the ‘Sciences of Religion’ in Early Third Republic France,” examines the introduction of the study of religion as a replacement for theology in university education and what the new disciplinary configuration reveals about the historical conception of laïcité. The project also sheds light on how the meaning of laïcité, which does not simply mean the subtraction of the religious, as in English, is itself a reflection of developments in the trajectory of secularity in France. His current research project investigates whether common factors prompted European thinkers after the 1830s to became convinced that there was little humans could do to alter the Earth’s stable climate and that the races of the human species were fixed.
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Japanese history; Azuchi-Momoyama and Edo period Japan (1568-1868); History of Japanese religions; Art and architecture of the Japanese archipelago; Hegemonic deification; Philosophy of history; Nationalism and nostalgia; Conceptions of time and the Anthropocene.
DISSERTATION
The Birth and Death of the Gongen: Decentering and Recentering Tōshōgū and Tokugawa Authority, 1616-1867
AWARDS
2021-22 Fulbright Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship