History & American Studies Department Symposium – Friday, 12/4

Our History and American Studies Symposium is this Friday, December 4. Students will be presenting their senior theses on a variety of topics. All are welcome to attend! The full schedule follows below:

University of Mary Washington
Department of History and American Studies Symposium – Friday, December 4
Monroe 210 and 11
9 am – 3 pm

 

SESSION ONE. 9 AM. Monroe 210 – Military History
Moderator: Dr. Susan Fernsebner

Benjamin Allen – “The Greatest Battle Never Told: The Meuse-Argonne Offensive, 1918”

David Hommer – “How the Wehrmacht Command Structure and Organization Ensured German Victory in the Battle of France, 1940”

Katie Mayo – “‘Keep mum… she’s not so dumb!’: Gender Roles and Female Allied Intelligence Agents in World War II”

 

SESSION TWO. 9 AM. Monroe 111 – Local and Global Histories
Moderator: Dr. Nabil Al-Tikriti

Brexton O’Donnell – “The Safavid Transformation: Religion and Power in Fifteenth-Century Persia”

David Wright – “Slavery’s Evolution: Sudanese Slavery, Nineteenth-Century to Today”

Allison O’Connor – “The Role of Irish Immigration on American Urban Politics and the Evolution of the Democratic Party”

 

SESSION THREE. 10 AM. Monroe 210 – East Asian Cinema and Visual Culture as History
Moderator: Dr. Porter Blakemore

Mia Serpas – “The Politics of Entertainment: Portrayals of Inter-Korean Conflict in South Korean Film, 1955-Present”

Alli Leibowitz – “On the Ground vs. On Display: Women’s Experience during the Cultural Revolution”

Jasmine Garner – “In the Name of the Moon, I Will Punish You: Girl Power, Gender, and Sexuality in Sailor Moon

 

SESSION FOUR. 10 AM. Monroe 111 – Selected Papers in US History
Moderator: Dr. Allyson Poska

Mareta Bailey – “Catholic Conversion and its Effects on the Iroquois and Huron Marital, Familial and Sexual Practices”

Zach White – “The Short-Lived Popularity of the Eighteenth-Century Pennsylvania Quakers”

Kimberly Humphries – “‘Sounds like a Spy Story’: The Espionage Thrillers of Alfred Hitchcock in Twentieth-Century English and American Society, from The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) to Topaz (1969)”

 

SESSION FIVE. 11 AM. Monroe 210 – Topics in U.S. History
Moderator: Dr. Jeffrey McClurken

Nate Levine – “Law and Risk in Nineteenth-Century America: The Farwell Case”

Zoe Page – “Women of the Civil War: Female Soldiers and Spies”

Phillip Buterbaugh – “Uplifting Hampton, Virginia:  Harris and Janie Porter Barrett’s Contributions to Saving the Race during the Nadir of African American History (1865-1915)”

 

SESSION SIX. 11 AM. Monroe 111 – European History: Crusades, Class, and Gender
Moderator: Dr. Jess Rigelhaupt

Patrick Ammirati – “Piety or Booty: The Reason for the Early Crusades”

Abigail Fleming – “Living through the Black Death: How Access to Resources Affected Class Survival”

Imani Tinter – “Intelligent Women? Fifteenth and Sixteenth Century Italian Humanists on Women’s Intellectual Capacity”

 

Noon – Lunch Break

 

SESSION SEVEN. 1 PM. Monroe 210 – 20th Century Topics in U.S. History and American Studies
Moderator: Dr. Krystyn Moon

Rachael Piazza – “Wireless Communication System Failure on Board the Titanic”

Grace May – “‘If all these revelations make Me lose my simple faith in dinner!’: Public Reaction to The Jungle

 

SESSION EIGHT. 1 PM. Monroe 111. – Selected Papers in U.S. and Soviet History
Moderator: Dr. Steven Harris

Tyler Houston – “Birth of the American Penitentiary System” (Mackintosh)

Michael DeVito – “The Evolution of American Nuclear Weapons Strategy from 1945-1963” (Blakemore)

Brooke Tyrrell – “The Long Journey Back: Gulag Prisoners’ Reintegration into Soviet Society” (Harris)

 

SESSION NINE. 2 PM. Monroe 210 – Mid-Century U.S. History & American Studies: Cold War, Counter-Culture, and Food Deserts

Moderator: Dr. Jason Sellers

Brandon Altamirano – “Guatemala in 1954”

Alexander Privitt – “Ellis, D and LSD: Dock Ellis, the Counterculture Movement, and Major League Baseball In the 1970s”

Sharon Curd – “Food Deserts and Urban Farming in 21st Century American Cities”