MA in History

Program Highlights

The History Department faculty are hardworking, intellectually engaged, and devoted to promoting student success. In Spring 2018 the Department had 212 majors including 12 in the master’s program. About one half of our majors are preparing for careers as teachers in secondary education; the other half goes into the private or public sectors, law, or academia. The History Department also offers a Certificate in Public History that distinguishes it from other programs in the CSU and state universities nationwide. While focusing on serving the needs of majors, History faculty make vital contributions to the success of many other programs on campus, such as Liberal Studies, Multicultural and Gender Studies, American Indian Studies, African American Studies, Chicano Studies, Latin American Studies, Asian Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, and Humanities.

Hitting FTES targets and adding majors

Despite the loss of tenure-track faculty lines, the Department of History remains a vital, productive department that consistently hits its FTES targets. It currently has the highest student-faculty ratio of any department on campus at 40 to one. As the charts below demonstrate, our FTES production has grown steadily over the years, as has the number of History majors.

Our FTES production has grown about 10% since 2012

A bar graph depicting the number of history majors and minors currently enrolled in the program

A prolific, intellectually engaged faculty

There are many other ways to measure the success of the department. Below is a partial list of faculty publications and distinctions since 2012. This list includes peer-reviewed books, articles, book chapters in anthologies, book reviews and review essays, encyclopedia entries, awards, a Fulbright, and a post-doc.

Dallas DeForest
Articles and encyclopedia entries
“Hannibal and the Second Punic War,” “Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus,” “Julius Caesar,” and “Constantine the Great.” In The Roman World: Ancient Cultures to the 16th Century in Western Civilization, ed. by R. Scott Moore. Farmington Hills, MI: 2017. Gale/Cengage.
“Baths, Christianity and Bathing Culture in Late Antiquity,” In The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Archaeology, eds. W. Caraher, D. Pettegrew, T. Davis. (forthcoming)
“Between Ideology and Social Practice: Baths and Bathing in Christian Communities in Late Antiquity.” (forthcoming, Journal of Ancient History)
Review of L. Wallace, The Origins of Roman London, Cambridge Classical Studies, Cambridge University Press, 2014. Bryn Mawr Classical Review. 2018.
Grants, Awards
Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity Grant, RESP (Fall 2015)
College of Humanities and Fine Arts International Research Fellow (2017-18)
Laird Easton
Lou: A Biography of Lou Andreas-Salomé. Under contract with Yale University Press.
Book review of Gerhard R. Kaiser, ed. Deutsche Berichte aus Paris, 1789-1933: Zeiterfahrung in der Stadt der Städte. Forthcoming in H-France.
Los Diarios de Harry Kessler. Barcelona: Quaderns Crema. Spanish translation of the Kessler diaries, edited and introduced by Laird Easton. Forthcoming.
“Introduction” and “Note to the Russian Reader” in Дневники Гарри Кесслера (The Diaries of Harry Kessler) Moscow: AGRAF Publishing. Forthcoming.
“Harry Graf Kessler’s Path to Expressionism,” in German Expressionism and France: From van Gogh to Kandinsky. Edited by Timothy Benson. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Prestel Verlag, 2014.
“Zwischen Abenteuer die Langeweile: Harry Graf Kessler auf der Weltreise 1892” in Grenzenlose Moderne: Begegnung der Kulturen im Tagebuch von Harry Graf Kessler. eds Roland Kamzelak et al. Münster: Mentis Verlag, 2015.
“Harry Graf Kessler on National Identity, Nationalism and the Nation-State” in Harry Graf Kessler: Porträt eines europäischen Kulturvermittlers, eds Julia Drost and Alexandre Kostka. Deutscher Kunstverlag: Berlin, 2015.
Sinwoo Lee
2018-19 Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania's James Joo-Jin Kim Program in Korean Studies.
Steve Lewis
Rethinking Mexican Indigenismo: The History of the INI’s Coordinating Center in Highland Chiapas and the Fate of a Utopian Project, 1951-1976. Forthcoming, University of New Mexico Press, May 2018.
“’La REVOLUCIÓN no ha llegado aún al interior de este estado”: Tres utopías indigenistas en Chiapas y sus resultados,” forthcoming in Chiapas: Tierra de la diversidad. Nuevas miradas a su historia eds. Justus Fenner Bieling and María Dolores Palomo Infante (México, D.F.: Editorial Milenio, 2018), 78-95.
Translation of 2005 monograph with light edits: La revolución ambivalente. Forjando Estado y nación en Chiapas, 1910-1945 (México D.F.: CIMSUR/UNAM; Coneculta; UNICACH; UNACH; Cocytech, 2015).
“Revolution without Resonance? Mexico’s “Fiesta of Bullets” and Its Aftermath in Chiapas, 1910-1940,” in The Mexican Revolution: Conflict and Consolidation, 1910-1940 eds. Douglas W. Richmond and Sam W. Haynes. College Station: Texas A and M Press, 2013, 161-186.
“Indigenista Dreams meet Sober Realities: The Slow Demise of Federal Indian Policy in Chiapas, Mexico, 1951-1970,” Latin American Perspectives 39:5 (September 2012), 63-79.
--with Laura Giraudo, “Introduction: Pan-American Indigenismo (1940-1970). New Approaches to an Ongoing Debate,” Latin American Perspectives 39:5 (September 2012), 3-11.
Mike Magliari
The Elusive Eden: A New History of California, updated and revised 5^th edition. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, forthcoming. Co-authored with Richard B. Rice, William A. Bullough, Richard J. Orsi, Mary Ann Irwin, and Cecilia Tsu.
“Free State Slavery: Bound Indian Labor and Slave Trafficking in California’s Sacramento Valley, 1850-1864,” Pacific Historical Review, 81 (May 2012): 155-192.
Book reviews
Robert A. McNally, The Modoc War: A Story of Genocide at the Dawn of America’s Gilded Age (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2017), in Journal of Military History (forthcoming).
Nathan Jessen, Populism and Imperialism: Politics, Culture, and Foreign Policy in the American West, 1890-1900 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2017), in Journal of Interdisciplinary History (forthcoming).
William S. Kiser, Borderlands of Slavery: The Struggle over Captivity and Peonage in the American Southwest (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017), in Agricultural History (forthcoming).
Benjamin Madley, An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe, 1846-1873 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016), in Ethnohistory, 64 (April 2017): 341-342.
“Naming the Crime: Genocide, Extermination, or Ethnic Cleansing?” An extended review of Gary Clayton Anderson, Ethnic Cleansing and the Indian: The Crime That Should Haunt America (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2014), on H-AmIndian (December 2016).
Michael J. Lansing, Insurgent Democracy: The Nonpartisan League in North American Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015), in Annals of Iowa, 76 (Winter 2017): 139-141.
Boyd Cothran, Remembering the Modoc War: Redemptive Violence and the Making of American Innocence (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014), in Ethnohistory, 63 (January 2016): 179-180.
Tamara Venit Shelton, A Squatter’s Republic: Land and the Politics of Monopoly in California, 1850-1900 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013), in Southern California Quarterly, 97 (Summer 2015): 220-222.
Stacey L. Smith, Freedom’s Frontier: California and the Struggle over Unfree Labor, Emancipation, and Reconstruction (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013), in Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 45 (Summer 2014): 94-96.
Brendan C. Lindsay, Murder State: California’s Native American Genocide, 1846-1873 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2012), in Pacific Historical Review, 82 (August 2013): 448-449.
Patricia Ortlieb and Peter Economy, Creating an Orange Empire: Eliza Lovell Tibbets and the Birth of California’s Citrus Industry (West Chester, PA: Swedenborg Foundation Press, 2011), in California History, 90 (Spring/Summer 2013): 86-87.
Kevin Bales and Ron Soodalter. The Slave Next Door: Human Trafficking and Slavery in America Today (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009), in Labor History, 54, no. 1 (February 2013): 120-122.
Robert Gudmestad, Steamboats and the Rise of the Cotton Kingdom (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2011), in Journal of American History, 99 (December 2012): 911-912.
George Harwood Phillips, Vineyards and Vaqueros: Indian Labor and the Economic Expansion of Southern California, 1771-1877 (Norman, OK: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 2010), in Labor History, 53 (August 2012): 442-444.
Award
Louis Knott Koontz Memorial Award, 2013. Awarded by the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association for the best article published in the Pacific Historical Review. Prize awarded for Free State Slavery: Bound Indian Labor and Slave Trafficking in California’s Sacramento Valley, 1850-1864,” Pacific Historical Review, 81 (May 2012): 155-192.
James Irving Matray
Books
Crisis in a Divided Korea: A Chronology and Reference Guide. ABC-Clio, 2016. Ashgate Research Companion to the Korean War, Ashgate Publishing, 2014.
Northeast Asia and the Legacy of Harry S. Truman: Japan, China, and the Two Koreas, Truman State University Press, 2012.
Books chapters and articles
“Casualty of the Cold War: The Cairo Declaration and its Historical Legacy in Northeast Asia,” Journal of Northeast Asian History, 11, 1 (Summer 2014).
“The Failure of the Bush Administration’s North Korea Policy: A Critical Analysis,”
International Journal of Korean Studies, 20, 2 (Fall 2013).
“The Korean War,” in A Companion to Dwight D. Eisenhower, ed. Chester J. Pach, Jr., Blackwell-Wiley Publishers, 2017.
“The Korean War,” in Oxford Reference Encyclopedia in American History, ed. Mark Atwood Lawrence, Oxford University Press, 2016.
“The Korean War,” in Routledge Handbook of U.S. Diplomatic and Military History, 1865 to the Present, eds. Christos Frentzos and Antonio Thompson, Routledge Publishers, 2013.
“Conflicts in Korea,” in A Companion to Harry S. Truman, ed. Daniel Margolies, Blackwell-Wiley Publishers, 2012.
“Korea and Anti-Communist Policies in East Asia,” in The Guide to U.S. Foreign Policy: A Diplomatic History, eds. Robert J. McMahon and Thomas W. Zeiler, CQ Press Books, 2012.
Essays and review essays
“The United States, the Korean War, and its Consequences,” with Burton Kaufman, in American Foreign Relations Since 1600: A Guide to the Literature, Brill On-Line, forthcoming, 2017. Revision of annotated bibliography, ABC-CLIO On-Line, initially posted 26 August 2007.
“Korean War,” in Dictionary of American History: America in the World, 1776 to the Present, ed. Edward J. Blum, Scribner’s, 2016.
Roundtable Introduction, Gregg Brazinsky, Winning the Third World: Sino-American Rivalry During the Cold War, Passport, forthcoming, 2018.
“Still Liking Ike,” Presidential Studies Quarterly, 45, 1 (March 2015).
“Commentary on “Soviet-Japanese Relations During the Cold War,” Journal of Cold War Studies, 15, 2 (Spring 2013), H-Diplo, posted 17 January 2014.
“Commentary” on Shen Zhihua, Mao, Stalin and the Korean War: Trilateral Communist Relations in the 1950s, H-Diplo, posted 11 June 2013.
“Korea: The Uncivil War?,” Diplomatic History, 37, 2 (April 2013).
Roundtable Introduction, Michael Hunt and Steven Levine, Arc of Empire: America's Wars in Asia from the Philippines to Vietnam, H-Diplo, posted 8 April 2013.
“Commentary” on Carol C. Chin, Modernity and National Identity in the United States and East Asia, 1895–1919, H-Diplo, posted 7 January 2013.
Book reviews
Michael J. Green, By More than Providence: Grand Strategy and American Power in the Asia Pacific since 1783, Reviews in American History, forthcoming, 2018.
Geoffrey M. White, Memorializing Pearl Harbor: Unfinished Histories and the Work of Remembrance, Pacific Historical Review, forthcoming, 2018.
Stephen R. Taaffe, MacArthur’s Korean War General, H-FedHist, posted 15 August 2017.
Larry Blomstedt, Truman, Congress, and Korea: The Politics of America’s First Undeclared War, Journal of Cold War Studies, 18, 4 (Fall 2016).
David Patrick Houghton, “Spies and Boats and Planes: An Examination of U.S. Decision-Making during the Pueblo Hostage Crisis of 1968,” Journal of Cold War Studies, 17, 4 (Fall 2015), H-Diplo, posted 23 November 2016.
Masuda Hajimu, Cold War Crucible: The Korean Conflict and the Postwar World, New Global Studies, 9, 3 (December 2015).
Matthew Evangelista and Henry Shue (eds.), The American Way of Bombing: Changing Ethical and Legal Norms, from Flying Fortresses to Drones,
Journal of American History, 102, 2 (September 2015).
Charles K. Armstrong and John Barry Kotch, “Sino-American Negotiations on Korea and Kissinger’s UN Diplomacy,” Cold War History, 15, no. 1 (February 2015), H-Diplo, posted 1 August 2015.
Hiroshi Masuda, MacArthur in Asia: The General and His Staff in thePhilippines, Japan, and Korea, translated by Reiko Yamamoto, Pacific Historical Review, LXXXIII, 1 (February 2014).
Curt M. Cardwell, NSC 68 and the Political Economy of the Early Cold War, H-Net Reviews, posted 14 November 2012.
James Clay Moltz, Asia’s Space Race: National Motivations, Regional Rivalries, and International Risks, H-Net Reviews, posted 17 September 2012.
Robert Tinkler
Fulbright Teaching Fellow, University of Innsbruck (Austria). March to June 2013.
Article
“The U.S. South in National and Global Contexts” in Gudrun M. Grabher and Ursula Mathis-Moser, eds., Regionalism(s): A Variety of Perspectives from Europe and the Americas (Vienna: New Academic Press, 2014), 163-182.
Book Reviews
Tennessee Historical Quarterly. The Civilian War: Confederate Women and Union Soldiers During Sherman’s March, by Lisa Tendrich Frank (Baton Rouge: Louisiana University Press, 2015). Summer 2016.
Journal of Southern History. Masters, Slaves, and Exchange: Power’s Purchase in the Old South, by Kathleen M. Hilliard (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014). November 2015.
Journal of American History. The Yellowhammer War: The Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama, edited by Kenneth W. Noe (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2013). June 2015.
Civil War Book Review. Redemption Songs: Suing for Freedom before Dred Scott, by Lea VanderVelde (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014). Spring 2015.
The Historian. A Disease in the Public Mind: A New Understanding of Why We Fought the Civil War, by Thomas Fleming (Da Capo Press, 2013). Spring 2015.
Journal of Southern History. Prigg v. Pennsylvania: Slavery, the Supreme Court, and the Ambivalent Constitution, by H. Robert Baker (University Press of Kansas, 2012). February 2014.
Kate Transchel
Publications
Books:
Under the Influence: Working-Class Drinking, Temperance, and Cultural Revolution in Russia, 1900-1932. Pittsburgh University Press, May 2006.
The Break-Up of Yugoslavia: Conflict in the Balkans. Chelsea House Publishers, November, 2006.
Translations:
Osokina, E. A., Our Daily Bread: Socialist Distribution and the Art of Survival in Stalin's Russia, 1927-1941. Edited by Kate Transchel; translated by Kate Transchel and Greta Bucher, (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1999).
Articles:
“Western Demand Fuels Eastern European Sex-Slave Trade,” Hufffington Post, May 25, 2010.
“Behind the Myth of the ‘Happy Hooker’: Sex Trafficking From Moldova,” Global Post, January 4, 2010.
"Russia's Past, Present, and Future: A Faculty Reflection," Chico Statements, March 2001, p. 19.
"Drinking, Sobriety, and Alcohol Treatment in Russia Today," National Council for Eurasian and East European Research Newsletter, no. 4 (January 2000), pp. 7-8.
"Na puti k sotsializmu: Sovetskoe protivalkogolnoe dvizheniia, 1928-1932,"
Universitet Tomska: Spornik statei (Tomsk: Nauka Press, 2000).
"Liquid Assets: Vodka and Drinking in Soviet Factories, 1920-30," The Human
Tradition in Modern Russia (Scholarly Resources, 2000), pp. 129-41.
"Staggering Towards Socialism: The Soviet Anti-Alcohol Campaign, 1928-1932," The Soviet and Post Soviet Review, 23, No. 2 (1998), pp. 191-202.
"From Marx to Mafia: Research in the New Russia," Inside Chico State, vol. 27, no. 28 12 February 1998, pp. 1-3.
Encyclopedia Articles
“Alcoholism,” in The Encyclopedia of Russian History (Macmillan
Reference, 2004).
“Kaganovich, Lazar Moiseyevich,” in The Encyclopedia of Russian History (Macmillan Reference, 2004).
“Kalinin, Mikhail,” in The Encyclopedia of Russian History (Macmillan
Reference, 2004).
“Kuibyshev, Valerian Vladim,” in The Encyclopedia of Russian History
(Macmillan Reference, 2004).
“Left Opposition,” in The Encyclopedia of Russian History (Macmillan
Reference, 2004).
“Pyatakov, Grigory (“Yuri”) Leonidovich,” in The Encyclopedia of
Russian History (Macmillan Reference, 2004).
“Right Opposition,” in The Encyclopedia of Russian History (Macmillan
Reference, 2004).
“Twenty-five Thousanders (Dvadsatipiatitysiachniki),” The Encyclopedia
of Russian History (Macmillan Reference, 2004)
“United Opposition,” The Encyclopedia of Russian History (Macmillan
Reference, 2004).
“Vodka,” The Encyclopedia of Russian History (Macmillan
Reference, 2004).
“Alcohol and Temperance in the Soviet Union and Russia since 1917,”
Alcohol and Temperance in Modern History: An International
Encyclopedia, (ABC-Clio, 2003).
Book Reviews:
Bernstein, Frances L., Christopher Burton, and Dan Healy, eds. Soviet Medicine: Culture, Practice, and Science, Slavic Review, Fall, 2010.
Svetlana Malysheva, Sovetskaia prazdnichnaia kul’tura v provintsii:
prostranstvo, simvoly, istoricheskie mify (1917-1927), Slavic Review, 2007.
Laura Phillips, The Bolsheviks and the Bottle, Russian Review, Winter 2005.
Melancon, Michael and Alice Pate, eds., New Labor History: Worker Identity and Experience in Russia, 1840-1918, Canadian American Slavic Studies, Fall, 2004.
Takala, I. R. Veselie rusi: Istoriia alkogol’noi problemy v Rossii, Slavic Review, Spring, 2004
Viola, Lynne, ed. Contending with Stalinism: Soviet Power and Popular Resistance in the 1930s, The Russian Review, Summer 2003.
Glennys Young, Power and the Sacred in Revolutionary Russia: Religious Activists in the Village, Canadian-American Slavic Studies, Fall 2002.
Wood, Elizabeth A., The Baba and the Comrade: Gender and Politics in Revolutionary Russia, Canadian-American Slavic Studies, Summer, 2001.
Shearer, David R. Industry, State, and Society in Stalin's Russia, Labor History, Fall 2001.
Simpura, Jussi and Boris M. Levin, eds., Demystifying Russian Drinking: Comparative Studies From the 1990s, Europe-Asia Studies, 1999.
White, Stephen, Russia Goes Dry: Alcohol, State, and Society, Canadian American Slavic Studies, Summer, 1999.
Osokina, E. A., Ierarkhiia potrebleniia: O zhizni liudei v usloviiakh Stalinskogo snabzheniia, 1928-1935 gg., Russian Review, January, 1995.
Adler, Nanci, Victims of Soviet Terror: The Story of the Memorial Movement, Slavic Review, Winter 1995.
Papers Presented:
“Distilling Opposition: Temperance as a Challenge to Autocratic Power,” presented
at the Association of Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES), Chicago, Il, November 2017.
“Hidden in Plain Sight: Labor Trafficking in the Soviet and Post-Soviet World,”
presented at the Association of Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES), Boston, MA, November 2013.
“From Hope to Hell: Human Trafficking from Russia, Ukraine, and Moldova,” presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS) Convention, Boston, MA, November 2009.
“Human Trafficking from the Former Soviet Union,” presented at the Texas National Conference on Human Trafficking, South Texas College, McAllen, TX, March 2009.
“Slavery in the New Millennium: A Global Problem,” presented at the International Forum, California State University, Chico, April, 2009.
“Sons Against Fathers: Deviance and Social Protest in Brezhnev’s Russia,” presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS) Convention, Salt Lake City, Utah, November 2005.
“Tippling and Temperance: The Politicization of the Drink Question in Russia,” presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS), Chicago, IL, November, 2002.
“Home Brewers and Home Wreckers: The ‘Other’ Soviet Women,” presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS) Convention, Washington, DC, November 2001.
"Selling Sobriety to Workers: The Language of Soviet Temperance," presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS) Convention, Denver, CO, November, 2000.
"Socialization, Sociability, or Socialism?: Russian Drinking Rituals and Soviet Family Values, 1930-1940," presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS) Convention, Seattle, WA, November, 1997.
"Sobering Up the Revolution: Prohibition and Temperance in the Soviet Union, 1921-1928," presented at the American Historical Association's Annual Meeting, New York, NY, January 1997.
"Staggering Towards Socialism: The Soviet Anti-Alcohol Campaign, 1928-1933," presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS) Convention, Boston, MA., November 1996.
"Vodka and the Vanguard: Soviet Working-Class Drinking," presented at the Southern Conference on Slavic Studies (SCSS), Asheville, NC, April 1996.
"Giddy with Success: Alcoholism and Socialism in the 1930s," paper presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS) Convention, Washington, DC, October 1995.
"Benevolent Repression: Workers' Drinking and Social Control in the Soviet Union, 1920-1932," paper presented at the American Association for the       Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS) Convention, Philadelphia, PA., November 1994.
"Problema p'ianstva v Rossii i antialkogol'noe dvizhenie v gody pervoi piatiletki 1928-1933 gg." (The Problem of Drunkenness in Russia and the Anti-Alcohol Movement in the First Five-Year Plan, 1928-1933), presented in Russian at the Conference on Politics and Society in the West and in Russia, Saratov, Russia, May 1992.
"Sobriety and Culture: The Soviet Anti-Alcohol Campaign, 1928-32," paper presented at the Southern Slavic Convention, Savannah, GA., March 1991.
"Sobriety and Culture," paper presented at the Sixth Annual Symposium on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA., March 1990
Awards And Honors:
Outstanding Academic Advisor, CSU Chico, 2015.
Award for Excellence in Online Instruction, Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, CSU Chico, 2016.
International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX) Short-term Travel Grant: Spent 3 months in Moldova, Ukraine, and Russia interviewing victims of human trafficking, 2010.
CSU Chico Lantis Endowed Professorship August 2008-January 2009: Received funding for 6 months research on human trafficking in Moldova, Ukraine, and Russia. Interviewed leading experts in the field, workers at NGOs, and victims.
CSU Chico Maggie Award for excellence in teaching, 2007.
CSU Chico Summer Scholars Research Grant (Moscow), 2003.
National Council for Eurasian and East European Research, Post-Doctoral Grant (Russia and Ukraine), Spring, 1999.
Faculty Development Grant, CSU Chico, Fall 1997.
National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend, June-August Moscow, Russia, 1997.
CSU Chico Summer Scholars Research Grant, 1997.
University of North Carolina Dissertation Fellowship, January-May 1995.
International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX), long-term research scholar (Russia and Ukraine), 1992-93.
University of North Carolina off-campus research fellowship (Russia and Ukraine), 1992.
Department of Education Title VI FLAS Fellowship, Ukrainian language, 1991-92.
Interviews:
Interviewed on Australian Public Radio on a program about international human trafficking, May 2013.
Interviewed for forthcoming documentary on the Russian mafia and human trafficking by the Discovery Channel, March, 2013.
Interviewed by Molly Barber for a forthcoming short documentary on human trafficking. May, 2012.
Interviewed for a documentary on sex workers in the US. May, 2012
Najma Yousefi
Articles and Reviews
"Confusion and Consent: Land Tax and the Construction of Judicial Authority in the Early Islamic Empire (ca. 634-800)," accepted with moderate revision by Sociology of Islam. Forthcoming 2018.
"Division and Discord among the Shiʿa ʿUlamāʾ: New Lights on the Failure of the 1927 Anti-Conscription Movement in Iran," Iranian Studies 50.5 (September 2017): 705-33.
"Islam without Fuqahāʾ: Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ and his Perso-Islamic Solution to the Caliphate's Crisis of Political Legitimacy (70-142 AH/690-760 CE)," Iranian Studies 50.1 (January 2017): 9-44; published online, September 2015.
"Kharāj [land-tax]," Muhammad in History, Thought and Culture: An Encyclopedia of the Prophet of God, 2 vols., C. Fitzpatrick & A. Walker, editors, ABC-CLIO (2013) 335-338.
Review of Robert G. Hoyland, In God's Path: The Arab Conquests and the Creation of an Islamic Empire (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2015) Review of Middle East Studies 49.2 (2015): 198-200.
Review of Jocelyne Cesari, Why the West Fears Islam: An Exploration of Muslims in Liberal Democracies, Culture and Religion in International Relations (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) Sociology of Islam 2.2 (2014): 99-101.

Faculty awards

Lecturer Tim Sistrunk being honored for his years of service in fall 2014

In fall 2014, the Faculty Recognition and Support committee offered the Outstanding Lecturer Award for the first time. History lecturer Tim Sistrunk was honored that year for more than twenty years of service. Sistrunk has prepped and taught almost twenty different courses. He is also extremely involved in the life of the campus. He is currently secretary of the Academic Senate and is also president of the local chapter of the CFA (California Faculty Association. He is shown below with former president Paul Zingg and with the department’s recently retired (and much beloved) ASC, Claudia Beatty.

Professor Naijma Yousefi being honored with the Outstanding Advisor Award

In 2017-18, the History Department faculty returned to their winning ways. Professor Najma Yousefi was honored with the Outstanding Advisor Award for reviving the Middle Eastern Studies program and for co-founding and advising CALMENA, a Pan-Arabic pre-professional student group that aims at promoting peace and understanding about the Middle East. Yousefi also advises Chico State’s UNICEF chapter. Below, Yousefi is flanked by President Gayle Hutchinson and Provost Deb Larson. The award presentation was made in his HIST/MEST 363: The Middle East since 1800

Kate Transchel photographed with former president Paul Zingg after wining the Ou

Another way to gauge the success of the History Department is to consider the number of campus-wide, competitive awards garnered by the faculty. In fall 2014, History faculty members won two campus-wide awards. Kate Transchel, pictured with former president Paul Zingg, won the Outstanding Advisor Award for her work as founder and co-advisor of the human trafficking awareness student group STOP! (Stop Trafficking of Persons). From 2012 to 2017, Transchel organized three- to five-day conference aimed at raising awareness of human trafficking. She invited off-campus guests from law enforcement as well as authors, documentarians, and human trafficking survivors. Each of these conferences was attended by more than one thousand students.

Jason Nice being awarded the competitive Outstanding Teacher Award in 2018

In February 2018, History faculty member Jason Nice was awarded perhaps the most competitive prize on campus—the Outstanding Teacher Award. Nice is the consummate teacher who combines an old-school emphasis on high standards, research, and writing with an uncommon facility with technology and newer pedagogical practices. He is also intimately involved with the Liberal Studies program on campus and serves as department liaison to Liberal Studies. He has taught HIST 290, our methodology class, and has designed and currently offers HIST 313: Early Modern History, now a required class in the Liberal Studies major. He is shown below with his HIST 313 students, flanked by President Hutchinson and Provost Larson.

The History Club and Phi Alpha Theta (International History Honor Society)

The History Department provides students with opportunities to apply History outside of the classroom. Majors can publish their work in The Chico Historian (the CSU, Chico history student journal) and gain membership in its chapter of Phi Alpha Theta, the international history honor society.

Take a look at recent issues of The Chico Historian here.(opens in new window)

Award winners from the Northern California Regional Converence

Every spring, one of the member chapters of Phi Alpha Theta hosts the Northern California Regional Conference. In spring 2014, our chapter hosted the conference and ended up winning three of the six prizes award to outstanding undergraduate and graduate papers. In April 2014 Chico State’s Phi Alpha Theta members and their advisors successfully hosted the Northern California Regional Conference. Award winner Rod Thomson, pictured above on the right, would go on to take first prize in the graduate category the following year.

Members of the History Club and Phi Alpha Theta on a field trip to San Francisco

The History Club/Phi Alpha Theta takes one or two field trips every semester to local points of interest. In fall 2017, the club went to the Empire Mine in Grass Valley, CA, and the Donner Memorial State Park in Truckee, CA. In spring 2018, the thirty-four students in the club went to the De Young Museum in San Francisco to see the temporary Teotihuacán exhibit.

Lectures, sponsored lecture, and roundtables

Another measure of the Department’s vitality is the quantity and caliber of on-campus lectures and roundtables that we either provide ourselves or we facilitate. Every fall, the Department invites a renowned scholar to participate the Joanna Dunlap Cowden Memorial Lecture Series. In recent years, our Cowden lecturers have drawn more than 200 people to their talks. The Department has also invited or co-sponsored other lecturers, like Myrna Santiago, who delivered a lecture on extractivism in Latin America, or Professor Transchel’s former advisor Donald Raleigh, who spoke on the centenary of the Russian Revolution. History Department faculty members, like Kate Transchel, Jason Nice, Najma Yousefi, and Steve Lewis have presented their research and/or forthcoming books to the broader campus, and History Department members have participated in roundtables on the meaning of World War I and Donald Trump’s surprise victory in the 2016 presidential election. Below are some of the posters that we helped make to publicize our events.

Dr. Kate Transchel, our Russianist, secured funding for and brought the "Revolutionizing the World?" exhibit to our campus in early 2018. She participated in a roundtable and organized a lecture to promote the exhibit and gave dozens of tours to school groups.

The graduate program in History

The History Department has a small graduate program that makes up in quality and diversity for what it may lack in numbers. In recent years, several outstanding students have earned MA degrees in our program. Two of these students—Rod Thomson and Jerrad Benedict—were so outstanding that they were immediately invited to join the faculty as lecturers.

The History Department has also been the fortunate beneficiary of a large bequest to its longstanding Macintosh-Hutchinson Graduate Fellowship Award. Now, the Department can make up to two awards a year of up to $10,000 to support graduate research. 2016-2017 was the first year that we made large awards based on the bequest. The recipients, Carol Celic and Jeanette Adame, are pictured below.

Carol Celic, recipient of the graduate fellowship award

Carol worked in archives in Southern California to research the environmental history of the Channel Islands.

Jeanette Adame, recipient of the graduate fellowship award

Jeanette conducted archival research in New Orleans to study the slave trade in the early nineteenth century. Jeanette won first place in Chico State’s Student Research Competition and will move on to the statewide competition in Sacramento later this semester.

Another one of our current students, Alison Saechao, won a Graduate Equity Award in spring 2017 that pays her tuition and a modest stipend for two years. She has a close mentoring relationship with our newest hire, Dr. Sinwoo Lee. Alison was one of our undergrads that won our Outstanding Student Award in spring 2016.

Rod Thomson

Possibly the Department’s most accomplished graduate student ever is Rod Thomson. After a career in catering and grant writing, Rod got his BA in History from Chico State and immediately entered our graduate program. He did outstanding work for several of us, including Prof. Jeff Livingston, who advised him on a local history project that looked at Chico State in the turbulent 1960s. He taught himself to read Arabic and wrote his thesis under the supervision of Prof. Najma Yousefi. He was recently honored in March 2018 with the university’s Outstanding Thesis Award.

Rod’s accomplishments are another indicator of success for our department (and especially our graduate program). Time and again, when matched up with regional and or statewide competition, Rod measured up and often took first place. A partial list of his achievements follows:

First place graduate paper, Phi Alpha Theta Regional Conference, 2017 (regional)
Glenn and Dorothy Dumke Fellowship, 2015 (statewide)
Second place research project, Student Research Competition, 2015 (statewide)
Second place graduate paper, Phi Alpha Theta Regional Conference, 2015 (regional)
Four articles published in The Chico Historian (2014-2017)

Concluding thoughts

Despite a serious decline in tenure-track faculty, the History Department continues to meet most of the needs of its students, although gaps have recently emerged in the history of Native Americans, US Women/Gender/Sexuality, and Early America. The History Department faculty are prolific, engaged scholars and dedicated teachers and mentors who give students ample opportunities to succeed and engage with history in and out of the classroom. Students who graduate with History degrees are well-equipped to succeed either as secondary school teachers or as professionals in the private or public sectors.