History Department News and Research

“What really needs to happen here is for the Biden administration to work with and ensure—with its European allies, with its Arab allies—Syria's territorial integrity, ensure transition to a democratic government, and ensure that all Syrians will be protected,” says Osamah Khalil, professor of history. 

The translation, “Someone’s Rule for Virgins,” in Professor Albrecht Diem's “The Pursuit of Salvation: Community, Space, and Discipline in Early Medieval Monasticism” (Brepols, 2021), is currently featured as the Translation of the Month on Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index.

“The Roosevelt administration had attempted to reign in the Japanese, particularly by the use of economic boycotts. In mid-1941, especially, the Roosevelt administration had boycotted all sales of gasoline and aviation fuel to the Japanese. Now the idea was that this would be a detterent to the Japanese. It would persuade them to withdraw from China. But ironically, it ended up having the opposite effect,” says Alan Allport, professor of history.

Assistant Professor Tomás Olivier was among those who gathered in the Dr. Paul & Natalie Strasser Legacy Room to take the Oath of Citizenship.

“One thing we do know is that the Latino vote broke for Trump to a much greater extent than it has for any Republican,” says Margaret Susan Thompson, associate professor of history and political science. “So the question is, does that add significantly to the Catholic margin?”

“She both inherited a crisis as well as the commitments AMLO made to a range of stakeholders like the National Guard,” says Gladys McCormick, Jay and Debe Moskowitz Endowed Chair in Mexico-U.S. Relations, referring to the former president by his initials. 

The undergraduate and graduate students received the recognition at the school’s Syracuse Centennial Celebration.

“We know that Catholics are probably as divided as the rest of the electorate right now,” says Margaret Susan Thompson, associate professor of history and political science. “The election is extremely close by almost any standard and Catholics seem to be in many ways mirroring the American population in that regard,” she says.

“It's really interesting that the Catholic Church is probably one of the few places where you find people with different perspectives sitting together at Sunday Mass,” says Margaret Susan Thompson, associate professor of history and political science. She adds that if past election results are any indication, Catholic turnout and the choices they make at the polls will depend on a variety of factors.

Ian Glazman-Schillinger will further his dissertation examining the digital strategies of far-right hate groups since the 1980s.

“To my eye, the mural intentionally attempts to implicate Jews writ large for the actions of the Israeli government, and it does so by taking a universal Jewish symbol, the star of David, and attempts to merge it with a swastika,” says Britt Tevis, assistant professor of history.

The Maxwell School welcomes several new faculty members for the start of the 2024-25 academic year.   

Several Maxwell School faculty have been promoted to leadership roles, including Junko Takeda, who has been named chair of the Citizenship and Civic Engagement (CCE) Undergraduate Program after serving in an interim role since July 2023, and Leonard M. Lopoo, who began as chair of the Public Administration and International Affairs Department in July 2024. 

Margaret Susan Thompson, associate professor of history and political science, says that Biden’s endorsement of Kamala Harris means she will more than likely be the Democratic nominee in the November election. “Already we are hearing a lot of calls for unity, statements of enthusiasm, and a lot of speculation frankly about who might be the vice president. But I do not see a lot of noise around the candidate at the top,” she says.