Awards

Vincent P. DeSantis Prize for the best unpublished paper by a graduate student in History 

This annual prize honors Professor Vincent P. DeSantis (1917–2011), a distinguished and beloved scholar of American political history, who taught in the History Department for no less than sixty years, from 1949 until 2009.  

2022

Benjamin (Jack) Young

Ph.D. candidate, University of Notre Dame

2021

Sean Raming

Ph.D. candidate, University of Notre Dame

2020

Jorge Puma Crespo

Ph.D. candidate, University of Notre Dame

2019

John Nelson

Assistant Professor, Texas Tech University, Lubbock TX

2018

Tomás Valle

Ph.D. candidate, University of Notre Dame

2017 

Jonathan Riddle

Visiting Assistant Professor, Seaver College, Pepperdine University, Malibu CA

2016

Elizabeth Baker

Assistant Professor, Grove City College, Grove City PA

2015

Samuel K. Fisher

Assistant Professor, Catholic University of America, Washington DC

2014

Belen Vicens Saiz

Assistant Professor, Salisbury University, Salisbury MD

2012

David Russell Komline

Associate Professor, Western Theological Seminary, Holland MI

2011

Eleanor (Pettus) Schneider

Independent Scholar & Scholar in Residence at the Newberry Library

2010

John Cirilli

Proofreader/Editor, Writer

2009

Joshua Kerscmar

Assistant Professor, Unity College, Unity ME

2008

David Morris

Director of the Souvay Memorial Library at Kenrick Glennon Seminary, St. Louis MO

2006

Martina Cucchiara

Associate Professor, Bluffton University, Bluffton OH

2005

Justin Poché

Associate Professor, College of the Holy Cross, Worcester MA

2004

Margaret Abruzzo

Associate Professor, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa AL

 

2002

Steven Schroeder

Associate Professor, University of the Fraser Valley, Abbotsford BC, Canada

 

2000

Christine Caldwell Ames

Professor, University of South Carolina, Columbia SC


John Highbarger Memorial Award for the best doctoral dissertation in History

This annual award honors the memory of John Highbarger (1940–1973), who was a doctoral student in the History Department. 

2022

Sejoo Kim

Assistant Professor, Gyeongin National University of Education, Incheon, South Korea

“American Postcolony: Imperial Citizenship and the Rise of Garment Metropolis in the Pacific, 1944–1999”

2021

Nicholas Roberts

Assistant Professor, Norwich University, Northfield VT

“A Sea of Wealth: Sayyid Sa‘id bin Sultan, His Omani Empire, and the Making of an Oceanic Marketplace”

2020

Nicholas Bonneau

Full-Time Lecturer, University of Maryland–Baltimore County, and Consulting Scholar, Mütter Research Institute, College of Physicians of Philadelphia, Philadelphia PA

“Unspeakable Loss: New England’s Invisible Throat Distemper Epidemics, 1735–1775”

2019

Jonathan Riddle

Visiting Assistant Professor, Seaver College, Pepperdine University, Malibu CA

“Prospering Body and Soul: Health Reform, Religion, and Capitalism in Antebellum America”

2018

Samuel K. Fisher

Assistant Professor, Catholic University of America, Washington DC

“Fit Instruments: Gaels, Indians, and the Diverse Origins of Imperial Reform and Revolution”

2017

Adam Foley

Language Faculty, Bard High School Early College, New York NY

“Homer’s Winged Words and Humanist Latinity: The Task of Translating Homer in the Italian Renaissance”

2016

Benjamin Wetzel

Assistant Professor, Taylor University, Upland IN

“American Crusade:  Lyman Abbott and the Christian Nation at War, 1861–1918”

2015

Courtney Wiersema

Director, Graduate Career Development, University of Chicago, Chicago IL

“All Consuming Nature:  Provisioning in Industrial Chicago, 1833–1893”

2013

Maria Rogacheva

“The Soviet Scientific Intelligentsia from Stalin to Gorbachev, 1956–1985:  A History of A town That Did Not Exist”

2012

Melinda Grimsley-Smith

Coordinator, International Scholarships, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green KY

“Politics, Professionalization, and Poverty: Lunatic Asylums for the Poor in Ireland, 1817–1920”

2011

Danielle Dubois

Archivist, National Archives, Baltimore MD

“Before the Culture Wars: Conservative Protestants and the Family, 1920–1980”

2010

Nicholas P. Miller

Professor, Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary, Andrews University, Berrien Springs MI

“The Religious Roots of the First Amendment: Dissenting Protestantism and the Separation of Church and State”

2009

David R. Swartz

Professor, Asbury University, Wilmore KY

“Left Behind: The Evangelical Left and the Limits of Evangelical Politics”

2008

Steven Schroeder

Associate Professor, University of the Fraser Valley, Abbotsford BC, Canada

“Reconciliation in Occupied Germany, 1944–1954”

2007

Thomas Rzeznik

Associate Professor, Seton Hall University, South Orange NJ

“Spiritual Capital: Religion, Wealth, and Social Status in Philadelphia, 1880–1950”

2006

Margaret Abruzzo

Associate Professor, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa AL

“Polemical Pain: Slavery, Suffering, and Sympathy in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Moral Debate”

2005

Darren Dochuk

Professor, University of Notre Dame

“From Bible Belt to Sunbelt: Plain Folk Religion, Grassroots Politics, and the Southernization of Southern California, 1939–1969”

2004

Bonnie Mak

Associate Professor, School of Information Sciences, University of Illinois, Champaign IL

“(Re)defining the Page for a Digital World”

2004

Darin Hayton

Associate Professor, Haverford College, Haverford PA

“Astrologers and Astrology in Vienna During the Era of Emperor Maximilian I (1493–1519)”

2003

Daniel B. Hobbins

Associate Professor, University of Notre Dame

“Beyond the Schools: New Writings and the Social Imagination of Jean Gerson”

2002

Rachel M. Koopmans

Associate Professor, York University, Toronto ON, Canada

“Dispute, Control, and the Individual Voice: The Making of Miracles at Christ Church, Canterbury, 1080–1220”

2002

Mark A. Jantzen

Professor, Bethel College, North Newton KS

“At Home in Germany? The Mennonites of the Vistula Delta and the Construction of a German National identity, 1772–1880”

2001

Nicole Mische Gothelf

“Persecution, Identity, and Politics: The English Protestant Martyr Narrative and Oppositional Politics in Early New England and Pennsylvania”

2000

Barbra M. Wall

Professor Emerita, School of Nursing, University of Virginia, Charlottesville VA

“Unlikely Entrepreneurs: Nuns, Nursing, and Hospital Development in the West and Midwest, 1865–1915”

1999

Michael G. Clinton

Professor, Gwynedd Mercy University, Gwynedd Valley PA

“The French Peace Movement, 1821–1919”

1999

Steven M. Nolt

Professor, Elizabethtown College, Elizabethtown PA

“German Faith, American Faithful: Religion and Ethnicity in the Early American Republic”

1998

Vladimir Janković

Reader (equivalent to Professor), University of Manchester, United Kingdom

“Meteors under Scrutiny: Private, Public, and Professional Weather in England, 1800–1850”


Philip Gleason Prize for the best published article by a graduate student in History

The prize is semi-annual.  (During 2018–21, it was awarded annually.)

The prize honors Professor Emeritus J. Philip Gleason (1927–), a leading scholar of American Catholic history and more generally US social and intellectual history, who taught at Notre Dame from 1959 until his retirement in 1996.  

2021

Mihow McKenny

Ph.D. candidate, University of Notre Dame

“The Art of Salvation: Sacramental Penance in Dante’s Commedia, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History, 3rd series, vol. 13 (2016 [2019]): 71–139.

2020

Sejoo Kim

Assistant Professor, Faculty of Social Studies Education, Gyeongin National University of Education, Incheon, South Korea

“‘With All Your Heart’: American Missionaries and the State in Mission Fields,” Diplomatic History 45, no. 1 (January 2021): 162–185. 

2019

John Nelson

Assistant Professor, Texas Tech University

“The Ecology of Travel on the Great Lakes Frontier: Native Knowledge, European Dependence, and the Environmental Specifics of Contact,” Michigan Historical Review 45, no. 1 (Spring 2019): 1–26.

2018

Jorge Puma Crespo

Ph.D. candidate, University of Notre Dame

“Small Groups Don’t Win Revolutions: Armed Struggle in the Memory of Maoist Militants of Política Popular,” Latin American Perspectives 44, no. 6 (November 2017): 140–155.

2015

Belen Vicens Saiz

Assistant Professor, Salisbury University, Salisbury MD

“Swearing by God: Muslim Oath-Taking in Late Medieval and Early Modern Christian Iberia,” Medieval Encounters 20, no. 2 (2014): 117–51.

2013

Michael T. Westrate 

Assistant Vice Provost, Graduate Education & Research, Villanova University, Villanova PA

“The Self against the State: Valery Abramkin and the Destruction of Dissident Identity,” Acta Slavica Iaponica, International and Interdisciplinary Journal of the Study of Russia, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia 31 (January 2012): 105–21.

2011

Heath W. Carter

Associate Professor, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton NJ

“Scab Ministers, Striking Saints: Christianity and Class Conflict in 1894 Chicago,” American Nineteenth Century History 11, no. 3 (2010): 321–49.

2009

Michael Lee

Associate Professor, Templeton Honors College at Eastern University, St. Davids PA

“Higher Criticism and Higher Education at the University of Chicago: William Rainey Harper’s Vision of Religion in the Research University,” History of Education Quarterly 48, no. 4 (November 2008): 508–33.

 

Earlier winners:

2007

Sarah C. Davis-Secord

Associate Professor, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque NM

2005

Matthew J. Grow

Director of Publications, Church History Department, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Brigham Young University, Provo UT

2003

David C. Mengel

Professor and Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, Xavier University, Cincinnati OH

2001

David S. Bachrach

Professor, University of New Hampshire, Durham NH

1999

Angela Gugliotta (deceased)