Current Fordham PhD student Jason McDonald contacted us with details of his work to help celebrate the legacy of New York City public school PS 61, which was founded in 1913 and located at 610 East 12th street. With the assistance of Fordham faculty member Daniel Soyer, McDonald has been amassing photographs, text, and video to document the history of his son’s school. The history is being shared and distributed to East Village Community School (EVCS), Children’s Workshop School (CWS), and the SPECTRUM School P94M. All three schools occupy the former Public School 61 building. Nearly 100 photos and documents have been uploaded to http://ps61nycjubilee.org/ and provided a searchable database for teachers and students to find information. Read on for more pictures on the school and the celebration, and links to further information, images, texts, and a documentary.
Monthly Archives: November 2014
PhD Student Jason McDonald Chronicles Famed Home of NYC Public Education
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Leading WW I Historian Addresses Students at Lincoln Center
On November 6 Professor Michael Neiberg addressed history students at the Lincoln Center campus. His presentation entitled “Images of the First World War” was the annual event organized by the Department of History for students in Eloquentia Perfecta 1 history courses at Lincoln Center.
Michael Neiberg is one of America’s leading military historians. He is Professor of History in the Department of National Security and Strategy in the Army War College in Carlyle, Pennsylvania. Neiberg is the author of seven books, and the editor or co-editor of five others. His Dance of the Furies: Europe and the Outbreak of World War One, was selected by the Wall Street Journal as one the five best books ever written on World War One. Forthcoming next year is his study of the Potsdam Conference.
After his presentation Dr. Neiberg answered numerous questions in a lively exchange with students.
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In New Article, Durba Mitra Explores Medical Jurisprudence and Rape Adjudication in India
We undertook a comprehensive study of the role of forensic medicine in the legal adjudication of rape cases in postcolonial India. We studied all publications on medical jurisprudence for India from the late nineteenth century until today in South Asia and analyzed the use of medical jurisprudence in rape cases reported in the high courts in India from 1952 until 2011. Rape has received significant attention in the last two years in international media, leading to the substantial reform of rape laws in India. We argue that for legal reforms to be effective, changes must be made to textbooks, medical protocol, and the use of medical evidence in rape cases. Our research resulted in the publication of our article, “Testing Chastity, Evidencing Rape:” in Economic and Political Weekly, a key peer-reviewed publication on India that brings together academics, researchers, and policy makers.
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Crane Fund Research: America Imagines Korea
This is the second of our series of reports from graduate students working in US history who were awarded research funding from the Crane Fund, generously established by Professor Elaine Crane. This report is from PhD student Brandon Gauthier.
The generous assistance of the Elaine Forman Crane Research Grant enabled me to travel to College Park, Maryland in June and the Republic of Korea (ROK) in August to conduct research for my dissertation, entitled: “North Korea in the American Imagination, 1950-1996: Cultural, Intellectual, and Political Perspectives.” [Read on}
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Crane Fund Research: Looking for French Empire in New Orleans
When Professor Elaine Crane was honored by Fordham University with funding for scholarly activities to mark her elevation to the rank of Distinguished University Professor, she generously offered the funds as one-time research grant awards for graduate students in US history.
In the coming weeks we will profile the research projects undertaken with support of the Crane fund. This week: a week in the archives in New Orleans with Jacquelyne Thoni Howard. For Jacque’s report from New Orleans, read on.
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Phi Alpha Theta Speaker on Spaceflight and US Culture
Historian Matt Tribbe discussed his recent book, No Requiem for the Space Age (Oxford University Press, 2014), for the Phi Alpha Theta Lecture Series on Monday, November 10. Dr. Tribbe’s talk explained the links between space exploration and American culture in the 1960s, including fascinating connections between the Apollo moon landings and evangelical Christianity, New Age yogic practices, the modern environmental movement, and popular film and fiction.
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Carina Ray Brings Ghana Expertise to BBC Television Show
In a recent blog post for Oxford University Press, Carina Ray writes:
As an Africanist historian committed to reaching broader publics, I was thrilled when the research team for the BBC’s genealogy program Who Do You Think You Are? contacted me late last February about an episode they were working on that involved the subject of some of my research, mixed race relationships in colonial Ghana. I was even more pleased when I realized that their questions about shifting practices and perceptions of intimate relationships between African women and European men in the Gold Coast, as Ghana was then known, were ones I had just explored in a newly published American Historical Review article, which I readily shared with them. This led to a month-long series of lengthy email exchanges, phone conversations, Skype chats, and eventually to an invitation to come to Ghana to shoot the Who Do You Think You Are? episode.
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Daniel Soyer Speaks on Anniversary of US Representative Meyer London

Congressman Meyer London (1871-1926) , who served in the US House of Representatives twice (1915-1919 and 1921-1923)
On Wednesday, October 29, Fordham professor Daniel Soyer took part in a panel marking the 100th anniversary of the election of Socialst labor lawyer Meyer London to Congress from the Lower East Side of New York. Part of the Lower East Side Tenement Museum‘s “Tenement Talks” series, the panel also included London biographer Gordon Goldberg, historian and London grandniece Rosalyn Baxandall, and Rabbi Andy Bachman. You can see video of the event here or listen to audio here.
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Fordham PhD Wins Taiwan Research Fellowship
Darryl E. Brock, Ph.D. (May 2014) just received the Taiwan Research Fellowship from the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office for winter and spring 2015. As a visiting scholar at the Academia Sinica, Darryl will work with government, diplomatic and NGO representatives on his project “Taiwan’s Diplomacy and Foreign Aid to Latin American Nations: An Assessment of Presidents Chen’s and Ma’s Differential Strategies.” As a prelude to this work, Darryl traveled to the Caribbean nation of St. Lucia this past August where he conducted in-depth interviews with the Taiwanese ambassador, as well as St. Lucian government officials.
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A Fulbright to Uruguay: Postcards from Pedro Cameselle
Last April, we announced the news that Fordham PhD student Pedro Cameselle had won a Fulbright grant to fund his doctoral research in Uruguay. Over the course of his research, Pedro has agreed to send us a series of postcards illustrating his experiences. This month, he writes to us about the building he can see from the Fulbright office in Montevideo: the Palacio Salvo.
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