Fall 2018 Newsletter
STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT
Yomara Solis posing in a room with her award winning photograph
Yomara Solis, a current bachelor's degree student, won first prize in the library student-photo contest for her photo Asi Es La Vida Aqui en California. It will be on display this fall in the library.  (Solis pictured left)

Jacky Lepe Flores , a current undergraduate, won the 2017 C enter for the Study of Genders and Sexualities (CSGS) Student Research Award for her project, “Flattening Indigenous Ideologies of Gender and Sexuality: What Happened When the Europeans Arrived to Latin America (1550-1647).”  An article based on that research has advanced to stage two of the Global Undergraduate Awards, selected from a pool of 4887 submissions around the world.

Wendy Figueroa , a current master's degree student, won the student research award at this year’s CSGS conference for her paper “Then & Now: Portrayals of Mexican Indigenous Women.”

Cyrene Cruz , a bachelor's degree in history alum, and current master's degree student, completed a four-week archaeological dig in Bulgaria of Ancient Greek Cities this summer. She also won a Michigan Humanities Emerging Research Scholars ( MICCHERS) grant to study at the University of Michigan with noted papyrologist, Brendan Haug. 
Awards and Scholarships
Nancy Escalante was awarded the 2018-19 Sally Casanova Pre-Doctoral Scholarship . The scholarship is a CSU system-wide award that helps prepare top students for doctoral programs. 

Citlalli Anahuac was awarded the William E Lloyd Memorial Fellowship from the Emeriti Association of Cal State LA.
Howard Starrett Memorial Scholarship Award Winners

Citlalli Anahuac
Abigail Calderon
Cyrene Cruz
Hannah Wong
Mitzi Zavaleta
Dr. and Mrs. David Miller Scholarship Award Winners

Cyrene Cruz
Mitzi Zavaleta

Monica Taylor Award Winner

Hana Villafana
ALUMNI NEWS
Juan Garcia and Katie Mishler posting together in front of a wall
Juan Garcia (B.A., 2008) and Katie Mishler (B.A. 2011, M.A. 2017) delivered the keynote address at the department's End of Year Banquet in May 2018. Garcia teaches social sciences at Garfield High School while Mishler teaches history at Cerritos Community College.  (Garcia and Mishler pictured left)

A round-table of Torrie Hester’s , Ph.D. (M.A., 2000) book Deportation: The Origins of US Policy , recently appeared in the Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, January 2018, 170-198 . Hester is an associate professor of history at St. Louis University.  
In Memoriam
Dr. Erika Wilson smiling looking away from the camera
We are saddened to report to the passing of Erika Wilson, Ph.D., on June 6, 2018 at age 84. Born in Germany, Dr. Wilson studied at numerous universities in Europe before coming to California. Dr. Wilson completed her first Ph.D. at UCLA in economics, with a focus on business ethics. Along the way she developed an interest in religion, and while teaching economics at California State University, Northridge, she completed a second Ph.D. in comparative religions at the University of Southern California. She joined the economics department at Cal State LA, where she achieved tenure, but she gradually migrated to the history department, where she spearheaded the establishment of the religious studies program. 

Throughout her career, Dr. Wilson brought a keen interdisciplinary perspective to questions of ethics and faith. Her publications included  Business and Society: An Introduction to its Social Responsibilities  and Emotions and S piritual Experiences in Religions and Spiritual Movements . After retiring in 2011, she continued to teach as a part-time instructor at Cal State LA; in the summers, she returned to her native Germany to teach at the University of Heidelberg. In addition to her professional accomplishments, Dr. Wilson was known for throwing lively Christmas parties. She is survived by her daughter Karen, two grandchildren, and many more loving relatives and friends.  
FACULTY PROFILE
Dr. Greenberg smiling to the camera in front of greenery.
Name : Dr. Erik Greenberg
 
How long have you been teaching at Cal State LA?  I am beginning my fourth year, but have been teaching history at the university level since 2004.

What do you teach? At Cal State LA primarily California History and Public History. Throughout my career, I have taught U.S. History, American Jewish History, and a range of other topics (including guitar and stage fighting!).

What’s your favorite class to teach and why? I can’t say. I am most interested in my students’ mastery in the disciplines of history—close reading, critical thought, clear and expressive writing, intellectual engagement, etc. My favorite class is the one where I can help every student learn and grow. Sometimes that happens in my classes, sometimes in my office hours, sometimes when I do a lecture or a presentation at a museum. I can’t pick just one class.

What do you do when you’re not professing? My full time job is the Director of Education and Visitor Engagement at the Autry Museum of the American West. There, I oversee a department of 17 paid staff (including five current master's (in history) students from Cal State LA) and close to 300 volunteers. Our department’s mission is to promote discovery, empathy, and inclusivity through the study of the America West. We welcome 150,000 general visitors and somewhere between 50,000-65,000 K-12 students annually. When I am not working, I do yoga, walk my dogs, and watch reruns of Dr. Who with my wife and daughter—at least until the BBC puts out new episodes this fall. I make no secret of the fact that I have been a New York Giants fan for almost fifty years.

Why is history important?  As I noted earlier, I am most interested in the skill sets that make up the practice of history—close reading, critical thought, clear and expressive writing, intellectual engagement, and civil discourse. I fear that these skills are in short supply today. Can you learn them in some other field? Perhaps, but I think studying history is one of the best ways to learn these practices. To be sure, I am interested in understanding the past and sharing that with the public as a toolkit for navigating the present, but I am not one of those people who believes that history repeats itself. Rather, like Mark Twain, I would argue that the past and the present rhyme.
FACULTY ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Books
Afshin Matin-Asgari Both Eastern and Western: An Intellectual History of Iranian Modernity (Cambridge). 

Enrique Ochoa , co-editor, México Beyond 1968: Revolutionaries, Radicals, and Repression During the Global Sixties and Subversive Seventies (University of Arizona Press).  

Ping Yao, Gender and Society in Tang China (Peking Press). 
Articles
Stanley Burstein , “Werner Jaeger Comes to Chicago,” International Journal of the Classical Tradition (2018) 1-14 (electronic).

Lani Cupchoy and Dawn A. Dennis , “Breaking the University Myth: Deepening Student Engagement through Culturally Relevant Pedagogy and Creative Practice,” Diálogo  21 (2) (2018): 91-8.

  
Kittiya Lee , “Translation as International Collaboration: The European Promise of Militant Christianity for the Tupinambá of Portuguese America, 1550s-1612,” Words and Worlds Turned Around: Indigenous Christianities in Latin America , edited by Davíd Tavárez, pp. 127-149. Denver: University of Colorado Press, 2017.

Kittiya Lee , “Cannibal Theologies in Colonial Portuguese America (1549-1759): Translating the Christian Sacrament of the Eucharist and the Tupinambá Pledge of Vengeance,” Journal of Early Modern History (21) (1-2) (March/April 2017): 64-90.

Carol Srole, Christopher Endy, and Birte Pfleger , “Active Learning in History Survey Courses: The Value of In-Class Peer Mentoring,” The History Teacher, 51 (1) (2017): 89-102.

Ángela Vergara , “Identifying the Unemployed: Identification Cards, Social Categories, and Relief in Depression-Era Chile, 1930-1934,” Labor: Studies in Working-Class History (15)(3) (September 2018):9-30.

Ángela Vergara , “Cuando los obreros no trabajan: una aproximación a la historia del desempleo en América Latina,” Trabajadores y sindicatos en Latinoamérica: conceptos, problemas y escalas de análisis , eds. Silvia Simonassi y Daniel Dicósimo (Buenos Aires: Imago Mundi Editores, 2018)
Other Accomplishments
Dr. Birte Pfleger holding flowers in the Golden Eagle Ballroom and surrounded by three other women
Congratulations to Dr. Birte Pfleger , winner of a 2018 Distinguished Women Award by Cal State LA! (Pfleger pictured left)

Dr. Choi Chatterjee’s article, "Imperial Subjects in the Soviet Union: Rabindranath Tagore, M. N. Roy, and Re-Thinking Freedom and Authoritarianism, " was honored by the Ab Imperio Quarterly as the best article for 2017.
 
In addition, Dr. Chatterjee received a grant of over $8,000 from the La Kretz Foundation to support her project, Climate Knowledge and Climate Resilience. The grant will help develop curriculum related to Dr. Chatterjee’s interest in climate change and food politics, and will include the development of a campus garden for learning purposes.   
 
Kittiya Lee was elected 2018-2019 President of the Brazil Studies Committee of the Conference of Latin American History (CLAH).
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