Senior Honors Theses
History Department Honors Program
To achieve honors in history, qualified students in the major must complete a two-semester sequence of courses, culminating in the preparation of a substantial and original thesis of approximately 75 pages. The thesis is based upon sustained, individual research in archival and other primary sources. Developed in consultation with the departmental honors director(s) and supervised by a faculty advisor with expertise in their chosen area, theses consider a wide variety of topics – from the ancient to contemporary eras, and from all parts of the world – and employ diverse methodological approaches. Most honors students receive funding from the History Department, as well as from other University sources, to complete their research, and participate in a system of peer review throughout the writing process.
Department of History Honors Program students can submit their thesis using this submission form. Please note that you may be prompted to log in or create a new ScholarlyCommons account before attempting to submit.
Papers from 2022
Memories of Captivity in the Great East Asian War (1592-1598), Junyoung Baik
The Role of IMF Austerity Policy in Causing the Jamaican Financial Crisis of the 1990s, Adrian J. Brown
The Law of the Other: Converts and Gentiles in the Eyes of Seventeenth-Century Istanbul Rabbis, Elyakim Engelmann-Suissa
The Reconstruction Crusade: Rebuilding France's Catholic Churches after World War I, 1914-1939, Leo M. Gearin
The Legacy of Sectarianism in the Imagination and Self-formation of the Rabbis, Ayelet Rubenstein
Building the Battle, Losing the War: The Defense Economy, Industrial Capitalism, and the Cold War’s Fallout in Alabama’s ‘Model City’, Denali E. Sagner
All the Pope's Men: Vatican Diplomacy and Espionage in Tudor England, 1534-1570, William A. San Pedro
Not a Question of "Whether or Not," but "Where" and "How": Crises of Affordable Housing in Montgomery County, Maryland, 1968-1996, Bianca M. Serbin
A Friendship Betrayed: The Jonathan Pollard Spy Case and American-Israeli Relations, Julie Sohnen
Covenant in Crisis: Orthodox Reactions to Slavery in Antebellum America, 1848-1861, Samuel Strickberger
BLUE-LINED COMMUNITIES: AN ANALYSIS OF THE EXPANSION OF THE NASSAU COUNTY POLICE DEPARTMENT DURING THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT, 1954-1971, Summer T. Thomas
SOUTHERN HARM: THE UDC’S EDUCATIONAL CRUSADE PROMOTING LOST CAUSE IDEOLOGY IN THE PROGRESSIVE ERA SOUTH, Zoey M. Weisman
Papers from 2021
On the Tails of the Trade: Enslaved Women, Slave Traders, and the Households they Shared, Zarina Iman
Papers from 2008
Forgetting the Violence, Remembering the Report: The Paradox of the 1931 Kanpur Riots, Priya Agarwal
Reading Under the Folds: John Dickinson, Gordon's Tacitus, and the American Revolution, Alexander Bregman
World's Fairs in Chicago and Barcelona: Spectacle, Memory, and Nationalism, Uri L. Friedman
Consolidating the Mexican State: Constitutionalism during the Presidency of Plutarco Elías Calles, Pedro Gerson
An American Ambassador in Berlin: Observing Hitler's Gambles in Foreign Policy, 1933-1937, Kevin P. Glowalla
The Root of the Opium War: Mismanagement in the Aftermath of the British East India Company's Loss of its Monopoly in 1834, Jason A. Karsh
Their Nation Dishonored, the Queen Shamed, and Country Undone: Feuding, Factionalism, and Religion in the Chaseabout Raid, Rachel Omansky
The Affair or the State: Intellectuals, the Press, and the Dreyfus Affair, David Rimoch
The Silent Partner: How the Ford Motor Company Became an Arsenal of Nazism, Daniel Warsh
Papers from 2007
The First Line of Contact: The Young Christian Made Ottoman Slave in the Sixteenth Century, Andrew Dalzell
"When Nature Holds the Mastery": The Development of Biocentric Thought in Industrial America, Aviva R. Horrow
Skepticism and Belief in Early-Modern France: The Fideism of Bishop Pierre Daniel Huet, Anton Matytsin
The White Author's Burden: Justifications of Empire in the Fiction of British India, Leslie M. Reich
The "Schemes of Public Parties": Benjamin Franklin, William Smith, and the Struggle for Control of the University of Pennsylvania, Jennifer W. Reiss
“Though all women are women, no woman is only a woman”: Black, White, and Chicana Feminist Consciousness Development from 1955 to 1985, Amy D. Rublin
Authorial Disputes: Private Life and Social Commentary in the Honglou meng, Carina Wells