Category Archives: Grad Student News

by | November 26, 2019 · 1:31 pm

Creating an Antiracist, Inclusive, and Transformative Classroom Environment

On November, 5th, 2019, History’s Technology and Pedagogy (TAP) hosted a workshop facilitated by Lisa Betty (Teaching Fellow, History). The session, entitled Creating an Antiracist, Inclusive, and Transformative Classroom Environment, demonstrated how to actively incorporate antiracist pedagogy in the classroom through language-use and writing. With inspiration from bell hooks’ engaged pedagogy and Paulo Freire’s critical pedagogy, graduate students discussed strategies for decolonizing language and writing in the classroom through the use of collaborative group work sessions and compulsory critical thinking. Lisa, Amanda, Patrick, and Toby would like this session to be the first of a larger workshop that aims to support GSAS Teaching Fellows in creating and implementing similar antiracist pedagogical strategies within the classroom and their teaching practice.


The History Department sponsored graduate group Technology and Pedagogy (TAP) meets weekly on Thursdays to discuss ways to incorporate technology in the classroom. Please contact Patrick, Toby, or Amanda for more information.


The History Department sponsored graduate group Technology and Pedagogy (TAP) meets weekly on Thursdays to discuss ways to incorporate technology in the classroom. Please contact Patrick, Toby, or Amanda for more information.

(Left to Right) David Howes, Tanner Smoot, Lisa Betty, and Amanda Racine

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by | November 16, 2019 · 3:14 pm

Graduate History Workshop CFP: “Retracing Power: Authority, Conflict, And Resistance in History” – Deadline, December 13, 2019.

 

The Fordham History Department, through its O’Connell Initiative on the Global History of Capitalism, is accepting abstracts for its Graduate Student Workshop. The workshop will take place on Friday, April 3, 2020 at the Rose Hill Campus. The purpose of this workshop is to provide a space for graduate students to present, read, and receive valuable feedback from other graduate students and Fordham faculty on projects they are planning on publishing.

Our goal is to foster conversations across a wide variety of topics. Concepts such as power, politics, and society can be interpreted broadly across time periods and geographies. Submissions can include topics on race, gender, class, political and social structures as well as economic, cultural, and religious institutions from antiquity to the modern era. We especially welcome papers exploring the following questions: How are culture and political power intertwined?  How did gender, race, or class shape involvement in political institutions? How have class and race intersected with political power? How has the authority of religion affected social relations? How did the power structures of trade and colonialism function? What is the relationship between knowledge and power in social domains such as education, science, and/or medicine? Papers can investigate, but are not limited to, the question of power and:

Deadline & Submissions:

We invite submissions for individual papers from advanced MA and PhD students. Titles and abstracts (250-300 words) should include a working title and a main argument and be sent to fordhamgradworkshop@gmail.com by the deadline of December 13, 2019.  All submissions should include a separate document containing the author’s name, institutional affiliation, and contact information. 

Chosen participants will be notified by email no later than February 3rd, 2020. The final papers should be full-length drafts, about 20-35 pages in length (c. 5,000-9,000 words, double-spaced) with full citations. Papers should not have been published elsewhere. Presenters should plan to circulate their papers at least two weeks before the meeting. At the workshop, we will ask all contributors to not present their papers but introduce and frame their arguments with a 10-12-minute introduction leaving the bulk of the session to a detailed discussion of the paper among participants.

Financial Support: 

Fordham will offer up to $250 per accepted participant to defray travel costs.  The day’s schedule will also include a light breakfast, lunch and closing reception.

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by | October 24, 2019 · 4:31 pm

Graduate Student, Glauco Schettini, publishes in the Journal of Modern Intellectual History

Glauco Schettini’s article, “Confessional Modernity: Nicola Spedalieri, the Catholic Church and the French Revolution, c.1775-1800,” published in Modern Intellectual History (Cambridge University Press), reconsiders the Catholic reaction to the French Revolution and more broadly to the emergence of what we usually term “modernity.”

The article focuses on Nicola Spedalieri’s On the Rights of Man (1791) and on the debate that its publication sparked in Italy and beyond. The outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 and the polarization of public opinion between the supporters of the new regime and its relentless opponents convinced Spedalieri (1740-95), a well-reputed Catholic theologian, of the need to find a via media between these two extremes. Assuming the re-Christianization of the postrevolutionary world as his goal, Spedalieri argued that some aspects of revolutionary political culture (representative institutions, the idea of a social contract, the notion of human rights) were acceptable from a Catholic standpoint as long as the revolutionaries, in turn, agreed to abandon secularization and to uphold the traditional confessional organization of the state, recognizing Catholicism as the official state religion. It was not modernity itself, Spedalieri claimed, that should be rejected, but secularization, for a different modernity from that conceived by the revolutionaries was possible—a confessional modernity, combining revolutionary politics and confessional states. Far from gaining immediate acceptance, Spedalieri’s ideas were harshly criticized during the 1790s and then set aside by the triumph of reactionary Catholicism during the Restoration. However, they resurfaced later in the nineteenth century and ultimately played a decisive role in the development of the church’s attitudes toward modern culture, for they carved a path for Catholics to fight secularization from within and to reshape modernity accordingly.A free online version of the article is available here.


Glauco Schettini (Ph.D. Student at Fordham University)

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by | October 5, 2019 · 11:49 pm

Forthcoming HGSA Workshops

 “Dissecting an Article: the Writing and Publishing Process”

Wednesday, October 16th,  1:00pm

“Digital Humanities Presentation”

“Siege of Antioch Project” A collaborative project between scholars in the United Kingdom and Fordham’s Center for Medieval Studies. 

Thursday, November 14th, 5:00pm 

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by | December 16, 2018 · 6:25 pm

Postcard: Hello from King’s College

Jeffrey DoolittleOn December 7, 2018, History Ph.D. candidate Jeffrey Doolittle gave a paper entitled “‘Efficassimum est Alexandrinum’: Drugs and Efficacy in Early Medieval Latin Pharmacology” at the “Drugs in the Medieval World, ca. 1050-ca. 1400” conference held at the Strand Campus of King’s College London. This two-day conference, organized by Dionysios Stathakopoulos and Petros Bouras-Vallianatos, featured papers on the transcultural transmission of information about materia medica (medical ingredients) during the middle ages and brought together some of the best scholars working on medical texts in Greek, Latin, Syriac, Hebrew, Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Tibetan sources.

 

Jeffrey’s paper analyzed the growing connections between drugs, geography and efficacy in a series of related recipe collections in Latin which were extracted from the medical portions of Pliny the Elder’s Natural History. Focusing on a set of dental recipes and their subtle changes from manuscript to manuscript, Jeffrey noted that the ninth century marked a dramatic increase in the complexity and precision of new recipes added to older collections. These ninth-century recipe additions also showed a proliferation of the ingredients they required, along with a significant expansion of the medical applications of ingredients sourced from distant regions. These discoveries reflect a subtle rethinking of Pliny’s works along with the spread of new medical assumptions about particular substances and their places of provenance. The papers delivered at the conference are to be published in a forthcoming volume.

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by | December 2, 2018 · 6:09 pm

Graduate Student Publication: Glauco Schettini and “Building the Third Rome”

Current doctoral student, Glauco Schettini, has published an article in the journal for the Association for the study of Modern Italy. He has written a description of his work available below!

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by | November 26, 2018 · 1:30 am

HGSA Fall and Spring Events

Stephen Lecesse, PhD candidate and head of HGSA, has given us the inside scoop on the events that HGSA has organized this semester and what’s coming up in the Spring! Read Below:

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by | October 7, 2018 · 5:22 pm

Postcard from Spain… PhD candidate Rachel Podd reports on her research.

We’re happy to hear from Rachel Podd in this postcard she sent about her research in Spain this Summer. Rachel is a Ph.D candidate in the History department and helps lead undergraduates on el Camino de Santiago every spring. This summer she stayed after walking the camino to work on her own research. Rachel writes:

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by | September 16, 2018 · 7:29 pm

Postcard from Qasid Arabic Institute!

Amanda Racine, a PhD student in Medieval History, sent this postcard about her experience this past summer in Jordan studying Classical Arabic.

With the support of the GSAS Student Support Grant and the Joseph R. Leahey Fellowship both from Fordham, I traveled to Amman, Jordan this summer to study Classical Arabic at Qasid Arabic Institute. In addition to the grants from Fordham, I received a CARA Summer Tuition Grant from the Medieval Academy of America.

View from outside of my flat in Amman

 Amman is an amazing city and Jordanians are extremely friendly and welcoming. Exploring Amman was really enjoyable (especially after learning how to navigate the taxi system.) My lessons at Qasid consisted of four hours of grammar lessons a day (Sunday-Thursday) and additional lessons focused on pronunciation. It was a really intensive course but my classmates and teachers made it a joy to attend. My teachers had lived in Jordan their whole lives and were wonderful resources not only for Arabic, but also for where to find the best food in Amman!

Qasid: My class with our ustadhas (teachers)

When I was not in class, I was able to spend some time traveling around Jordan. Although not a major hub of crusader settlements in the twelfth and thirteenth century, there are a number of castles built during the crusades that now lie within Jordan’s borders. I visited Ajloun (one of the few Muslim fortresses), Shoubak, and Kerak. There were a number of Roman ruins located in right in the heart of Amman as well. I also visited one of Jordan’s most famous sites, Petra. The most famous part of Petra, the Treasury, was certainly awesome, but I most enjoyed exploring the narrow passageways and the views from the high cliffs.

The view from قلعة عجلون (Ajloun Castle) a twelfth-century Muslim fortress in Jordan

Arabic script on the ruins of  قلعة شوبك  (Shoubak Castle)

Inside قلعة كرك (Kerak Castle) a twelfth-century crusader castle in Jordan

Built c. 4th century BCE, Petra is Jordan’s most famous site

I was also able to make one short trip to Jerusalem. In Jerusalem I met with some crusade scholars who live in the region and walked around the Old City. It was an exciting combination of being able to hear about some of the research being done in the area and then actually be able to visit the places that we discussed.

View of the Old City from the Mount of Olives

Overall, my summer in Amman was a valuable experience. This was my first time in the Middle East and as someone who studies the Latin East in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries it was amazing to get a better sense of the landscape (soo many hills!) and culture of the region. I was able to not only build a solid foundation in Arabic but also meet some really wonderful people. I look forward to continuing my studies in Arabic and hope to return to to Jordan again soon. إن شاء الله.

 

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by | September 9, 2018 · 9:33 pm

Graduate Students: Recent Publication

Ronald Braasch

Ronald Braasch recently published an article titled: “The Skirmish: A Statistical Analysis of Minor Combats During the Hundred Years’ War, 1337-1453”in the Journal of Medieval Military History XVI (June, 2018). Ron is seeking to shed light on a neglected aspect of medieval warfare and discover what impact these smaller fights had on the conduct of warfare during the Hundred Years’ War. Skirmishes existed somewhere between a battle and duel, occurred during all varieties of  locations and environments, and formed an integral martial function between medieval combatants. Moreover, skirmishes were a common feature during the Hundred Years’ War as the chroniclers wrote so much about them. As a case study, Ron’s work examines the chronicles of Jean le Bel, Jean Froissart, Enguerrand de Monstrelet, and Matthieu d’Escouchy, whose narratives collectively span the entirety of the conflict. By examining chronicles quantitatively, Ron’s research indicates that the outcomes of skirmishes could influence the strategies of military leaders and that indiscipline was a key component in French military losses against English, Burgundian, and various other opponents. Ron is entering the first year of his PhD in History, where he is studying the roles of combat support personnel in the armies of Edward III.

Full Citation: “The Skirmish: A Statistical Analysis of Minor Combats During the Hundred Years’ War, 1337-1453.”Journal of Medieval Military History XVI,  (June, 2018): 123-157.

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