Volume 45 of
Perspectives
was the winner of the latest Gerald D. Nash Prize for Best History Graduate Online Journal from Phi Alpha Theta.
Editors in Chief
: Benjamin Baca, Christopher Empett, Ian Spik.
Editors
: Anibal Cervantes, Jeffrey Evans, Wendy Figueroa, Tanya Gonzalez, Edwin Hurtado, Adam Kendall, Chiquitara Kendall, Christopher Lynch, Donald Newton, Yvonne Ortega, Guadalupe Pena, Scott Wong.
Contributors
: Micheal Duchesne, Katie Mishler, Jessica De La O, Karina Cardenas, Hana Xochitl Villafaña
Faculty Advisor
: Birte Pfleger
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27th Annual Student Research Symposium
Graduate students,
Citlalli Anahuac
,
Eric Barnett
,
Alejandro Guardado
,
Alex Jreisat
, and
Jewelyn Mims
, and undergradate student
Patrick O’Rourke
all presented their research papers at the 27th Annual Student Symposium on Research, Scholarship and Creative Activities in February. Anahuac's presentation, “See What the Cihuatl Saw: Disrupting Conquest and the Archive of Coloniality in Sixteenth Century Mexico,” was honored as best graduate student presentation for the Arts and Letters session. O'Rourke's presentation, “Giant Steps: Jazz Diplomacy in the Cold War,” received the same honor in the undergraduate category.
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2019 Phi Alpha Theta Awards
This year, thanks to the generosity of the Los Angeles Historical Society, the history department was able to give two new awards for best student research. Congratulations to all the award winners!
Mike Kimmel Award
– Fanny Guirola
Eugene Fingerhut Award
– Ariel Krug Hernandez
David Woessner Award
– Ivan Antonio
Los Angeles Historical Society Awards
– Robert Bates and Ian Spik
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Congratulations to the new class of inductees to the Eta Xi Chapter of Phi Alpha Theta!
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- Priscilla Castillo
- Heidi Cook
- Jaimie Fauth
- Corinne Heatley
- Caitlin Hightower
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- Victor Melendez
- Jerry Sisneros
- Elan Studebaker
- Emily Velez
- Daniel Wurangian
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Name
: Sam Vong (M.A., Cal State LA; Ph.D., Yale University)
Current occupation
: Curator of Asian Pacific American History, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
Favorite memories of your M.A. program:
I enjoyed the wide variety of courses and how I was trained to think historically. Graduate seminars were small enough to allow for deeper engagement and meaningful interactions with other students. Expectations to lead class discussions and to work in small groups forced me to overcome my shyness and learn how to articulate my ideas to others. When I attended Pasadena City College, I worked full-time and didn’t have much opportunity to visit professors during office hours. And when I transferred to UC Berkeley, I felt too shy to approach professors because of the large lecture halls filled with hundreds of students. At Cal State LA, however, I found my professors encouraging and accessible, despite their hectic schedules. Finally, I appreciated the opportunity to engage in research, especially as a research assistant searching through African American newspapers at the Los Angeles Central Public Library to uncover the history of civil rights activism and digging through archives at the Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research. These activities prepared me for a career in academia.
Why is history important?
The study of the past sensitized me to patterns and connections across different periods and to understand how people, institutions, cultures, and ideas change over time (but also stay the same in many ways). In the M.A. program, I began to see historical patterns in a better way. As clichéd as it may sound, the study of the past helps us better understand and evaluate the present.
Why did you work in a museum?
I transitioned from a tenure-track job (at the University of Texas) to a curatorial position at the Smithsonian because I wanted to work on more publicly oriented projects. Working at a museum allows me to engage with audiences and communities that I would typically not work with as a professor. I consult with communities to identify and collect objects for the museum in order to open spaces for collaboration and shared knowledge production, which is imperative if the museum’s collections are to reflect the diversity of America. I thrive on the challenge of reaching new audiences and people from diverse backgrounds, ages, occupations, and learning abilities. Another enjoyable aspect of my job is to translate the painstaking, creative work of academic researchers to a wider audience through exhibits, public programs, digital projects, and collecting initiatives. I see myself as both a researcher and a bridge between academic researchers and museum audiences.
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John Chen Faculty Research Award Announced
Dr. John Chen has generously established an award fund to support research and scholarship of faculty in the history department. After matriculating to Cal State LA following a long and varied career in medicine and law, Dr. Chen completed his M.A. in history and embarked on a doctoral program at Claremont Graduate University. He has remained actively involved with Cal State LA, the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California and Cal State LA's Chinese American Oral History Project. An exhibit chronicling the history of his family was mounted at the library in 2015.
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David Jamison, who earned a master's degree in history from Cal State LA and a doctorate from Indiana University, received a tenure-track appointment to Edward Waters College in Jacksonville, FL.
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After almost thirty years at Cal State LA, Larry Guillow,
professor of history,
is teaching his final classes for the department this spring. Guillow came to Cal State LA in 1991, while he was completing a path-breaking study of race relations in 19th century Los Angeles. Over the next three decades he instructed thousands of students in American history courses. He is looking forward to spending more time with his wife, children, and grandchildren. The department is grateful for his service to our students, and wishes him all the best for the future.
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Eileen Ford has received two research grants, one a Faculty Fellowship from the John Randolph and Dora Haynes Foundation, the other a combined Duncan Gleason California Maritime History Fellowship/Peter Mauk, Jr. and Doyce B. Nunis, Jr. Fellowship from the Huntington Library. The fellowships support her new research project on the economic and social impact of the Wrigley Family on Southern California.
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This past January, Sara Pugach was awarded a Council of American Overseas Research Centers Fellowship to attend a workshop in Dakar, Senegal to enhance curriculum development for the teaching of African History. She was also awarded a German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) Reinvitation Grant for Summer 2019.
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Stan Burstein delivered the 2019 Zamankos Endowed Lecture at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell on March 19, 2019. His talk was entitled "Africa Meets Greece: The Case of Kush."
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Tim Doran,
Spartan Oliganthropia
(Brill, 2018).
Mark Wild, Renewal:
Liberal Protestants and the American City after World War II
(University of Chicago Press, 2019).
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Ping Yao,
“
Between Topics and Sources in the History of Sexuality in Imperial China.” In Howard Chiang, ed.,
Power and Pleasure: Writing the History of Sexuality in China.
University of Washington Press, 2018, 34-49.
Sara Pugach, “Agents of Dissent: African Student Organizations in the German Democratic Republic” in
Africa: Journal of the International African Institute
Vol. 88, Supplement 2019.
Angela Vergara, with Peter Winn. “‘Los Empresarios Hacen lo que Quieren’: Sindicatos y Trabajadores bajo la Dictadura de Pinochet,” in
Un País Desigual a la Fuerza: Complicidad Económica con la Dictadura Chilena
, eds. Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky, Karinna Fernández, and Sebastián Smart. Santiago, Chile: LOM, 2019.
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The exhibit “Los Angeles River: Past, Present, and Future,” which draws on the photographic archives to chronicle the history of the Los Angeles River, will be displaced at the University Library. The opening night reception will be held on
April 10, 2019 at 5:30 p.m.
at Library North A Level
.
Curator Choi Chatterjee, co-curators Sergio Maldonado, Jewelyn Mims, and Mark Wild worked with the Los Angeles Times, which along with the library has generously provided funds for the exhibit.
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Give today to support the history department at Cal State LA
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