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Dr. Miller Wins Award

Brenna Miller was awarded the 2024 Learning Communities Excellence Award from First-year Programs. This award recognizes her continuing work to support first-year students in her History 105 course using multiple venues and activities.

Dr. Booth Presenting at Seattle University

Ryan Booth is presenting the 2024 Seattle University Al Mann Lecture based on his research on the Jesuit-Native Boarding Schools in the Pacific Northwest. His presentation, “The Heart of It All: The Jesuit Mission School at Coeur d’Alene, 1878-1974,” will focus primarily on the boarding school at DeSmet, Idaho as a case study. The presentation will be at 5pm on April 24 in the Rolfe Community Room in the Advancement & Alumni Building at Seattle University.

Dr. Smelyansky New Book Published

Eugene Smelyansky’s new book, Medievalisms and Russia: The Contest for Imaginary Pasts (Arc Humanities Press, 2024) has been published. The book explores how the medieval past has been wielded to propagandic effect in Imperial, Soviet, and post-Soviet Russia. From politicians’ speeches to popular culture, from Orthodox Christianity to neo-paganism, the medieval Russian past remains crucial in constructing national identity, mobilizing society during times of crisis, and providing alternative models of communal belonging. Frequent appeals to a medieval Slavic past, its heroes and myths, have provided―and continue to provide―a particularly powerful tool for animating imperialist and populist sentiments.

Dr. Miller and Dr. Spohnholz Article Published

Brenna Miller and Jesse Spohnholz just published a new article: “Backward Design and Forward Thinking in the Introductory World History Course: Recentering World War I as an African and African Diasporic Experience.” World History Bulletin 89, no. 2 (2023) as part of a Special Issue dedicated to “Democratizing, Diversifying, and Decolonizing the World History Survey.”

RCI Event Series – “The Dividing Line: Race and Segregation in Early Seattle”

Dr. Megan Asaka, associate professor of history, University of California, Riverside and author of Seattle from the Margins: Exclusion, Erasure and the Making of a Pacific Coast City will present her research at 4:30 p.m. on April 4 in Todd Hall Addition 276. Her talk, “The Dividing Line: Race and Segregation in Early Seattle” will examine the creation of a geographical line in the city, dividing north and south, and white and non-white. This segregation began at the inception of white settlement when founders pushed the Duwamish peoples to the southern part of the city and maintained a “residence district” in the northern part for white families. The efforts of local authorities in the city to contain its multiracial population shaped a geography of inequality that persists, as is evident in the social and spatial dynamics in Seattle today.

Dr. Miller Wins Excellence in Teaching by Career Track Faculty Member Award

Brenna Miller has won the  Excellence in Teaching by Career Track Faculty Member Award. The award is designed to specifically honor career-track faculty members who epitomize the highest levels of performance and excellence and who provide a vital role in teaching WSU students in the pursuit of the university’s goals and thereby in the fulfillment of its mission.