Recent Senior Projects in Historical Studies
- “‘Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea’: South Africa’s Black Consciousness Movement and ‘Thinking at the Limit,’ 1968–77”
- “CIA in Laos: A Secret Collaboration of CIA and Hmong”
- “Pharsalus: Fall of the Roman Alexander”
- “Shekomeko: The Mohican Village That Shaped the Moravian Missionary World”
Digital Commons
Complete version of Historical Studies senior projects at the library's Digital Commons linked below.
Senior Projects 2022
JORDAN S. DONOHUE
Tivoli, New York
Historical Studies: “The Victors of Finance: How Federal Connections to Corporate Wealth Weakened Reforms in the 2008 Financial Crisis”
Project Adviser: Jeannette Estruth
BRIANNA ESTRADA
Poughkeepsie, New York
Environmental and Urban Studies and Historical Studies: “Blood and Water: How Anti-Indigenous Colonial Ideology Led to the Drainage of Mexico City’s Lakes”
Project Advisers: Miles Rodríguez and Robyn L. Smyth
LUNA IXCHEL FLORES-RAMIREZ
Los Angeles, California
Historical Studies: “When the State Fails: How El Sereno, a Neighborhood in Northeast Los Angeles, Forged a
Movement for Affordable Housing”
Concentration: Latin American and Iberian Studies
Project Adviser: Miles Rodríguez
KALEIGH LAGVILLE-GRAHAM
Centereach, New York
Historical Studies: “Small Towns Must Struggle: The Impact of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s ‘War on Poverty’ in Ellenville, New York, 1960 to present”
Project Adviser: Jeannette Estruth
EVAN HOLLAND MATTHEWS
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Historical Studies: “A Delicate Balance: US-China-Taiwan Relations under the Nixon and Carter Administrations in
the 1970s”
Project Adviser: Robert J. Culp
GENESIS MEDINA
Bronx, New York
Historical Studies: “Silencing Taíno Voices: Narrating Colonial and Imperial Occupations of Quisqueya through Mapping”
Concentration: Experimental Humanities
Project Adviser: Miles Rodríguez
REMY L. NAUMANN
New Paltz, New York
Historical Studies: “Weaponizing Ballet: An Episode in American Cold War Diplomacy”
Project Adviser: Sean McMeekin
KATHERINA KAVITA WAHI
New York, New York
Historical Studies and Sociology: “The Effects of British Colonialism in India on Indo-Caribbean Communities”
Project Advisers: Omar Cheta and Yuval Elmelech
BO WEN ZHENG
Xian, China
Historical Studies: “History, Ritualization, and the Rhetoric of Legitimacy in Decem Libri Historiarum and Wei Shu”
Project Adviser: Lu Kou
Senior Projects 2021
ZIV BENJAMIN BARANCIK
Houston, Texas
Historical Studies: “Black Drugs: Narcotic Temperance and Moral Productivity in Egypt, 1882–1920”
Project Adviser: Omar Cheta
SAKINAH FATIMA BENNETT
Douglasville, Georgia
Dance and Historical Studies: “Blood vs. Water”
Concentration: Africana Studies
Project Adviser: Maria Q. Simpson
KATHERINE DALY DRORBAUGH
Burlington, Vermont
Historical Studies and Spanish Studies: “‘Pero, díganme’: Don Felipe Guamán Poma de Ayala y su relato de la historia del Perú”
Concentration: Latin American and Iberian Studies
Project Adviser: Nicole Caso
NICHOLAS KENNAN HERMANN
Long Island City, New York
Historical Studies: “The Sale of the Romanian-Germans (1969–1989): Migration, Minority Status, and the Construction of Ceaușescu’s Maverick State”
Project Adviser: Gregory B. Moynahan
ZHENGYANG JI
Beijing, China
Historical Studies: “Mentality of the German Middle Class and Nazism: The Activation and Transformation of Existing Antisemitic and Anti-Liberal Tendencies by Rapid Social Changes”
Project Adviser: Cecile E. Kuznitz
OLIVIA CHAMPION JOHNSON
Oxford, Mississippi
Historical Studies: “From Colonial Agriculture to Community Resilience: A History of the United States Gulf Coast, 1718–2005”
Project Adviser: Jeannette Estruth
BEIDA LIANG
Nanchang, China
Historical Studies: “The Treatment of Ethnic Minorities on the Border during the Great Unification of the Middle Qing Dynasty
(17th – 18th Century), Taking Yunnan and Mongolia as Examples”
Project Adviser: Robert J. Culp
ELLA FAYE McGRAIL
Greenland, New Hampshire
Historical Studies and Written Arts: “Strawberry Ghosts: Lore, Loss, and Licentiousness in a 400-Year-Old City”
Project Advisers: Christian Ayne Crouch and Dinaw Mengestu
ROMAN PEÑA
New York, New York
Historical Studies: “Power over the People: How Russia Used Religion to Unite and Control Its Populace during the Eras of Monarchy and Communism”
Project Adviser: Sean McMeekin
ARIANA ELISE PODESTA
Rockville, Maryland
Historical Studies: “The Children Marching: A Comparative Analysis of the 1963 Children’s Crusade and the 1976 Soweto Uprising”
Project Adviser: Drew Thompson
Concentration: Africana Studies
MARY REBECCA REID
Edgecomb, Maine
Biology: “Class 1 integron abundance as a measurement of pollution in Hudson River tributaries”
Project Adviser: Gabriel G. Perron
Historical Studies: “Unexpected Modes of Gendered Inheritance: How Royal Women Bequeathed Knowledge and Power in 16th-Century Europe through Letters, Translations, and Memoirs”
Project Adviser: Tabetha Ewing ’89
TALAYA M. ROBINSON-DANCY
Dayton, Ohio
Historical Studies: “How the Hell Did We Get Here? A Look at How the Civil Rights Movement Influenced Campus Activism, Civic Engagement, and Current Movements around Civil Liberties”
Concentration: Africana Studies
Project Adviser: Tabetha Ewing ’89
SAMUEL PARKER STEPP
Brooklyn, New York
Historical Studies: “Sovereignty and State Structure in South Africa, 1908–1997”
Project Adviser: Gregory B. Moynahan
MATTHEW THOMAS STRIEDER
Red Hook, New York
Historical Studies: “A Step Too Far: NATO Expansion and Ukraine Crisis”
Project Adviser: Sean McMeekin
ANNE PERI UMBANHOWAR
Evanston, Illinois
Historical Studies: “Jewish Self-Help and the Pursuit of Happiness: American Jewish Advice Literature in the Late 20th Century”
Concentration: Jewish Studies
Project Adviser: Cecile E. Kuznitz
SAMUEL ELI WILKINS
Glendale, California
Historical Studies: “Looking at the Thorn and Seeing the Rose: Incomplete Contract Theory and British Petroleum in Iran, 1901–1954”
Project Adviser: Omar Cheta
Senior Projects 2020
DOREEN GYIMAH ADUTWUMWAH
Bronx, New York
Historical Studies: “The Continuities within the Ghanaian Festival Scene: The Performance of Nation Building and Identity Formation”
Concentration: Africana Studies
Project Adviser: Drew Thompson
ALIYA BEYHUM
Beirut, Lebanon
Historical Studies and Human Rights: “Neither Dead nor Alive: Lebanon’s Missing and Forcibly Disappeared Persons”
Project Adviser: Thomas Keenan
ANNA-SOFIA ANDREA BOTTI
Wallingford, Vermont
Historical Studies: “Freedom of Speech in America’s Concentration Camps: The Press and Public Discourse for Japanese Americans at Manzanar”
Project Adviser: Robert J. Culp
Piano Performance (BMus): Kurtág: selections from Jatekok; Beethoven: Sonata No. 21 in C Major, Op. 53 (“Waldstein”); Prokofiev: Sonata No. 2, Op. 14 in D Minor; Chopin: Ballade No. 1, Op. 23 in G Minor
Principal Teacher: Benjamin Hochman
ADAM FERRUCCI
Cataumet, Massachusetts
Historical Studies: “Space Struggles: The Fight for Advocacy in New York’s Garment Industry”
Project Adviser: Myra Young Armstead
LOUISA JANE FULKERSON
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Historical Studies and Russian and Eurasian Studies: “Voice of Silence: Women Inmates’ Perspective on Sexual Violence in the Soviet Gulag, 1936–56”
Project Adviser: Olga Voronina
RICHARD OWEN HARTMAN
Ithaca, New York
Computer Science and Historical Studies: “From Rural to Urban: Understanding America through the Census”
Project Adviser: Keith O’Hara
MARKO JUKI´C
Potsdam, New York
Economics: “Growing Hope: A Polanyian Analysis of American Agriculture”
Project Adviser: Kris Feder
Historical Studies: “American Chemical Weapons Policy 1933–45: Politics, Preparedness, and Warfare”
Project Adviser: Gregory B. Moynahan
TRISTAN THEODORE KOZUL
Wakefield, Rhode Island
Historical Studies: “Graft and Slime in New York City: Exploring the Impact of Organized Crime on the Nullification of the 18th Amendment”
Project Adviser: Jeannette Estruth
MITCHELL J. LEVINSON
Somers Point, New Jersey
Historical Studies: “Sympathy for the Oppressed: Imperial-Era Teachings in Soviet Ethnography”
Project Adviser: Robert J. Culp
ALEXANDER DAVID LYNCH
Esperance, New York
Historical Studies: “Armed and Dangerous: The Ascendance of the National Rifle Association”
Project Adviser: Myra Young Armstead
NOAH H. NICKERSON
New York, New York
Historical Studies: “Parts of Sound: Possibilities of Listening Historically to Collection, Broadcast, and Exhibition”
Project Adviser: Drew Thompson
ZAYD YUSUF NORMAND
Bangkok, Thailand
Biology: “Diversity and human influence in the nest microbiome”
Project Adviser: Bruce Robertson
Historical Studies: “Merry < Machiavellian: Exploring King Charles II the Puppet Master from the Fall of Edward Hyde to the Fall of the CABAL”
Project Adviser: Richard Aldous
PETER HARRY O’DONNELL
New York, New York
Historical Studies: “In the Blink of an Eye—Truman, the Atomic Bomb, and the Most Controversial Decision of the Second World War”
Project Adviser: Robert J. Culp
JIHYEONG PARK
San Francisco, California
Historical Studies: “The Incomplete Social Contract: Elites and Ideals in the England of John Locke (1632–1704) and the Korea of Jeong Dojeon (1342–1398) and Heo Gyun (1569–1618)”
Project Adviser: Gregory B. Moynahan
AUSTIN A. SUMLIN
Atlanta, Georgia
Historical Studies: “‘Of Course You’re More Than an Athlete; Now Throw the Damn Ball!’: How Modern-Day Athletes Mirror Postbellum Sharecroppers”
Project Adviser: Jeannette Estruth
ABIGAIL JULIA TOWNEND
Media, Pennsylvania
Historical Studies: “‘Communism may be the only alternative if America walks away’: The Reagan Administration and the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986”
Project Adviser: Richard Aldous
IAN JOSEPH ULLMANN
South San Francisco, California
Historical Studies and Political Studies: “Warrior Pride: General MacArthur vs. the State”
Project Adviser: Richard Aldous
HATTIE WILDER KARLSTROM
Amherst, Massachusetts
Historical Studies: “The Limits of Natural Boundaries: A Botanist’s Experience of Mexico’s Northern Border in the 1800s”
Concentration: Latin American and Iberian Studies
Project Adviser: Miles Rodríguez