Syracuse University History Department

PhD Candidate in Early American History, Cameron L. Kline, Ph.D. has had a busy summer! Here he is, conducting research at the Lackawanna Historical Society, Zimmerman Center for Heritage and Native Lands Heritage Trail, and in Philadelphia this summer. Kline is writing about land, Indigenous power, and the events that led to the Albany Conference of 1754. He was also a key collaborator and author for an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed article, "Creative Practice and Spatial Storytelling in the Cartographic Classroom," headed by Syracuse Geographer, Prof. Meghan Kelly (link in comments). Congratulations Cam!

You never know who you’ll see in the archives! Professor Tessa Murphy, PhD candidate Peter Roy, and History MA alumna Caroline Barraco bumped into one another at the UK National Archives during their summer research trips! Here they are in the archive bookshop, where they found several copies of Professor Alan Allport’s books, including Demobbed!! 📚🍊📚

History PhD candidate Caleb Fouts is splitting time this summer collecting materials for his dissertation at several archives: at the Archivio Centrale dello Stato and the Vatican Apostolic Archives in Rome; the Archivio di Stato at Trieste; and the Gorizia regional archives. Here he’s pictured at work in Gorizia. Safe travels, Caleb!

Congratulations to Dr. Omar Cheta, whose interview was recently featured in Jadaliyya! He discusses his recent book, *How Commerce Became Legal* (Stanford University Press) in their New Texts Out Now (NEWTON) page.

For the full interview, see comment below.

Flight 2 of USA@250 is now available!

Maxwell School's Shaping a Nation series asks a powerful question: the founding principles of equality, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were written, but who fought to make them a reality for everyone?

This flight features four free public lectures taught by Maxwell faculty:

Frederick Douglass
The Woman Citizen?
Immigration
Indigenous Persistence

Watch all four lectures for free on YouTube and share with anyone who loves history, democracy, or a good intellectual challenge.

Link to the videos in the comments ⬇️

We have more fantastic undergraduate courses to consider for Fall 2026! Dr. Jashari is offering her HST 322 Colonial Latin America and HST 300 Cold War in Latin America! It’s time to think about your HST course lineup and add them to your schedule for Fall!

To mark the 250th anniversary of the United States, the Maxwell School has released the first flight of its USA@250 lecture series, and it's completely free to everyone.

Foundations features four lectures from Maxwell faculty exploring the origins of American democracy:

The British Empire: Tessa Murphy, associate professor of history
The Declaration of Independence: Carol Faulkner, professor of history
The American Revolution: Alan Allport, professor of history
The Constitution: Andrew Cohen, professor of history

No registration. No fee. Just celebrating U.S. history, taught by some of the best minds in the field.

Watch now on Maxwell's YouTube channel and stay tuned: Shaping a Nation, the next flight in the series, is coming soon.

Link to the playlist in the comments:

What is Prof Shanguhyia doing over the summer? We found him in his office in Eggers Hall, working hard on his manuscript and preparing for his upcoming research trip to Kenya, where he will be conducting oral interviews with rural community leaders. Many of our professors and graduate students are around on campus, making steady research progress before fall semester brings them back into the classrooms.

Professors Brian Brege and Junko Takeda are pictured here at the recent Oceanic Spaces and Global Microhistory symposium, hosted by the IMéRA Institute of Advanced Study at Aix-Marseille University in Marseille, France. Brege presented on “The Promise and Peril of Global Trade: Francesco Carletti’s Circumnavigation, 1594-1606,” while Takeda spoke on “Connectivity without Mobility: Maria Guimar de Pinha, the Ayutthaya Kingdom, and a Global Mediterranean.” Also pictured here is IMéRA’s Director of the Mediterranean Program, Prof. Brian Sandberg, who organized this event with other members of Aix-Marseille University.

We are excited to promote some great upcoming courses for Fall 2026! Here are two of them, offered by Prof. Aaron Luedtke: HST 427 and HST 428. They are cross listed with NAT and IRP. Please note that aside from HST 401, the 300 and 400 level courses in History are taught at the same level. We will be featuring several Fall courses across summer here on our socials, so majors, minors, and anyone across the university can plan and finalize their Fall lineup!