History Department News and Research

“There are 1.4 million Palestinians now who have been displaced for the second or third time in seven months. ...They're living in camps, disease is rampant, we have famine spreading throughout Gaza, and the reality is unless the international community, led by the United States, steps in and brings a halt to this, we could be looking at a major disaster,” says Osamah Khalil, professor of history.

Funded by gifts from hundreds of individual donors, including a lead gift from long-time Maxwell supporters Gerry and Daphna Cramer, the project has since awarded funds for dozens of faculty-led projects that have explored topics related to citizenship—from labor policy to free speech jurisprudence to climate change.

A pair of Maxwell professors are helping to lead an effort to foster a reciprocal learning relationship with the peoples of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.

Five Maxwell students and alumni are among the 14 Syracuse University students and alumni who have been named as 2024 recipients.

“Carrying the Cross: Popular Christian Communities and Religious Protest during Pinochet's Dictatorship, 1973–90,” authored by Assistant Professor of History Denisa Jashari, was published in the Journal of Latin American Studies.

Margaret Susan Thompson, associate professor of history and political science, says one of the biggest reasons for the changing relationship is that [Pope] Francis and other key decision-makers were members of religious congregations themselves. "I think that made a big difference," she says.

“The Chilean Christians for Socialism Movement: Liberationist, Third Worldist, and Utopian,” written by Assistant Professor of History Denisa Jashari, was published in Latin American Research Review.

The resolution was sponsored in the Senate by Sen. Rachel May and in the Assembly by Assemblymembers William Magnarelli '70 B.A. (Hist), L'73, Pamela Hunter and Albert Stirpe.  

"The public hand-wringing versus the actual demonstrative support for Netanyahu's government, politically, diplomatically, militarily is going to be difficult for Biden," says Osamah Khalil, professor of history. "It would be very difficult for him to explain that to the base and energize the base to come out in November," he says.

Jim Boeheim ’66, G’73, former Syracuse men’s basketball coach and special assistant to the director of athletics; and William “Bill” Brodsky ’65, L’68, chairman of a specialized investment firm and an investment management firm, will be recognized with honorary degrees from Syracuse University at the 2024 Commencement on Sunday, May 12.

The scholarships, now in their 35th year, were founded as a tribute to—and means of remembering—the students studying in London and Florence through Syracuse University who were killed in the Dec. 21, 1988, bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. 

Omar Cheta, assistant professor of history, contributed a chapter titled “Hostages of Credit: The Imprisonment of Debtors in the Khedival Period” to the book “The Oxford Handbook of Modern Egyptian History” (Oxford Academci, 2024).

Alana Coffman (international relations, citizenship and civic engagement) and Iona Volynets (international relations, history) were among those named 2024 Syracuse University Scholars, the highest undergraduate honor the University bestows.

“It is unprecedented in part because of who Senator Schumer is. He’s not only the Senate majority leader, he’s a democrat, but he’s also the highest-ranking Jewish official, the first Jewish Senate majority leader. So there’s a number of aspects here that are really important to and that add weight to what he’s saying,” says Osamah Khalil, professor of history.

Laws criminalizing adultery are on the books in a handful of other states but are rarely enforced. In most cases, they were put on the books at a time when adultery was among the only ways to obtain a divorce, according to Carol Faulkner, professor of history.