News

History Major Jordyn Smith Wins Frazier Thompson Scholar Award

Author: Daniel Graff

Jordyn Smith, History ’13, has been awarded the 2012 Frazier Thompson Scholar Award, given each year by the Black Alumni of Notre Dame to at least two rising seniors who have demonstrated academic excellence, service, and leadership in the greater African American and Notre Dame Communities.  The award is named in honor of the first African American graduate of Notre Dame, Frazier Thompson, who graduated in 1947. Read More

Historian Mark Noll Wins Christian Biography Prize

Author: Chris Milazzo

Mark A. Noll, the Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame, and his co-writer Carolyn Nystrom, a Chicago-based freelance writer, have won the 2012 John Pollock Award for Christian Biography for their book, Clouds of Witnesses: Christian Voices from Asia and Africa. Read More

Kathleen Sprows Cummings Appointed Director of Cushwa Center

Author: Michael O. Garvey

Kathleen Sprows Cummings, associate professor of American Studies, has been appointed director of the University of Notre Dame’s Charles and Margaret Hall Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism. Announcing the appointment, John McGreevy, dean of Notre Dame’s College of Arts and Letters, praised Cummings as “one of the country’s most accomplished scholars of American Catholicism.” Read More

Byzantine Studies at Notre Dame Expands Research Resources

Author: Joanna Basile

In preserving and developing the intellectual and literary traditions of the Greco-Roman world, in fashioning eastern orthodox Christianity, and in defining the notion of a Christian empire that was a center of intellectual and commercial trade, the Byzantine Empire was one of the great formative cultures in European history. Although its rule ended in 1453 C.E., Byzantium’s influence was far from over, and the University’s Byzantine Studies at Notre Dame initiative continues to explore this influential period in medieval history. Read More

Historian Brad Gregory's New Book Explores "The Unintended Reformation"

Author: Susan Guibert

How did our world come to be as it is? Examining why and how the West was propelled into its current pluralism and polarization over the long term, The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society (Harvard University Press, 2012), offers new insight into how life in North America and Europe has been shaped over the past five centuries by the Protestant Reformation. Author Brad Gregory, University of Notre Dame historian, traces the relationships among religion, science, politics, morality, capitalism and consumerism, and higher education from the Middle Ages through the Reformation era to the present. Read More

The Medieval Institute: A Community of Medievalists

Author: Carol Bradley

The Medieval Institute, located on the seventh floor of the Hesburgh Library, is a scholarly and academic unit of the University that promotes research and teaching on the cultures, languages, and religions of the medieval period (from roughly the fifth through 15th centuries). Its faculty come from more than a dozen different departments in the College of Arts and Letters Read More

College Welcomes Two New Moreau Fellows

Author: Karla Cruise

Hip-hop and boxing are not just entertainment for Notre Dame’s two new Moreau Academic Diversity Postdoctoral Fellows, Brian Su-Jen Chung and Jesse Costantino; they’re fertile ground for academic research. Chung, in the American studies department, and Costantino, in English, joined the College of Arts and Letters in fall 2011 as part of a University effort to enhance cultural awareness and diversity within the campus community. Read More

Rousseau Exhibit to Focus on Dignity of the Human Person

Author: Joanna Basile

Julia Douthwaite, professor of French in Notre Dame’s Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, is organizing a series of events to honor Swiss philosopher and writer Jean–Jacques Rousseau’s 300th birthday and stimulate a cross–disciplinary discussion on social justice and human dignity. The project, called Rousseau 2012: On the Road to DIGNITY, will be part of the curriculum for more than a dozen courses throughout the College of Arts and Letters and the Law School and will feature both guest lectures and an Amnesty International photography exhibit on poverty and human rights that includes portraits from Mexico, Egypt, Nigeria, India, and Macedonia. Read More

Notre Dame Among Top Producers of Fulbrights

Author: Arts and Letters

University of Notre Dame students were awarded 13 Fulbright grants for the 2011-12 academic year, placing the University among the top universities in the nation. Eleven of the 13 are from the College of Arts and Letters. The U.S. government’s flagship international educational exchange program, Fulbright recently announced the complete list of colleges and universities that produced the most 2011-2012 U.S. Fulbright students. Read More

Noteworthy

Dr. Noble Elected VP of ACHA

Former chair of the Department of History at the University of Notre Dame, Thomas F.X. Noble, has been elected vice president of the American Catholic Historical Association (ACHA) in 2011 and will become its president in 2012. Noble is a professor of history and former director of the Medieval Institute in the College of Arts and Letters.

Dr. Fernandez-Armesto Receives New Appointment

Felipe Fernández-Armesto, William P. Reynolds Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame, has been appointed the 2011 Cátedra Hispano-Británica Reina Victoria Eugenia at the Complutense University of Madrid.

Dr. Noble Honored with Sheedy Award

Thomas F.X. Noble, professor and chair in the Department of History, has been selected to receive the 2011 Sheedy Excellence in Teaching Award. “Tom Noble is an unusually worthy recipient of the Sheedy award,” says John T. McGreevy, I.A. O’Shaughnessy Dean of the College of Arts and Letters.

Exploring History

Undergraduates interested in the History Club or Exploring History, please check out our Exploring History Page or stop by the Department to see Dr Graff for more information.

'05 History PhD Publishes New Book

Darren Dochuk, Ph.D. '05 has published a new book with Norton. From Bible Belt to Sun Belt tells the dramatic and largely unknown story of “plain-folk” religious migrants: hardworking men and women from Oklahoma, Texas, and Arkansas who fled the Depression and came to California for military jobs during World War II.

Welcome Dr. McKenna and Dr. Ocobock

The Department also welcomes the newest members of the Department, Dr. Paul Ocobock and Dr Rebecca McKenna!

Fr Miscamble Publishes New Book

Congratulations to Fr. Wilson Miscamble on the recent publication of his latest book, The Most Controversial Decision: Truman, the Atomic Bombs, and the Defeat of Japan, published April 11th, 2011.

Welcome to the New Chair

Welcome to the incoming Chair, Dr Patrick Griffin. The Department is looking forward to its new leadership, though it will miss the outgoing Chair, Dr Thomas Noble. Good luck to Dr Griffin in his new position, and good luck to Dr Noble as he continues his research on leave.

History Department Bids Farewell

The Department of History would like to bid farewell to Dr Vincent P DeSantis, who passed away May 30, 2011. Dr DeSantis served the University and the Department of History for 60 years.