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Vincent P. DeSantis Prize for the best unpublished paper by a graduate student in History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