Our students have again been recognized as having the best Phi Alpha Theta honors society chapter in the country for our division. Our Phi Alpha Theta chapter (Alpha Delta Nu) overlaps largely with our History Club. All students are welcome to join the History Club, but to join PAT you must have a 3.1 GPA. There are details including information about how to apply here.If you would like to join Phi Alpha Theta, and if you meet the requirements, please contact Dr. Yvette Saavedra.For further information about the award, see the recent campus news story with the details and more information about the Club and Phi Alpha Theta.
Marc Arsell Robinson earned his PhD in American Studies from Washington State University in 2012. His research focuses on the Civil Rights Movement in the Pacific Northwest, and his upcoming book chronicles the Black Student Union in Washington State during the late-1960s. He has published articles, essays, and book reviews in venues such as Blackpast.org, The Western Journal of Black Studies, The Pacific Northwest Quarterly, Reference Services Review, and The Journal of Black Studies. Before coming to CSUSB, Robinson was Visiting Assistant Professor of History and Ethnic Studies at Whitworth University, winning the 2017 Junior Faculty Award for outstanding teaching and service. Prior to that, he was an Instructor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender, and Race Studies at Washington State University, where he also served as a diversity-affairs administrator. Robinson joins the CSUSB History Department this fall as Assistant Professor, teaching courses on African American and US History. This past summer, along with packing boxes and moving from the state of Washington, Robinson conducted several oral history interviews with former members of Seattle's Black Student Union and Black Panther Party.
The History Department is proud to announce the endowment of the W. Benson Harer Egyptology Scholar in Residence program. Each year, CSUSB will bring in a prestigious visiting scholar to teach a class on Ancient Egypt for the Department of History, Anthropology, and/or Art. The scholar will also work with Robert and Frances Fullerton Museum of Art (RAFFMA) and its renowned collection of ancient Egyptian artifacts to bring the study of ancient Egypt to life for our students. This visiting professor will also share her or his exciting work with the greater Inland Empire community in an event for the public. We are very pleased to announce that our first W. Benson Harer Egyptology Scholar in Residence is Dr. Jessica Tomkins from Brown University. In Winter 2019, she will teach History 452, Ancient Egyptian History: Origins to 1700 BCE. This class will allow her to share her personal research and knowledge of the Egyptian Old Kingdom, a time of pyramids and god-kings.
Interim director and editor for Great Oak Press, and CSUSB alum, Lauren Kirschke discusses her vision for the press in a recent interview with the San Diego Union Tribune. She outlines her dedication to Californian Native American history. She discuses how her education and involvement in CSUSB's History in the Making journal led her to this appointment. Incidently, one of the first books published by the press, which focuses on California Indian history, cultures, and langues, is one of CSUSB's adjunct faculty members, Dr. Michelle M. Lorimer's Resurrecting the Past: The California Mission Myth (2016). Click here for the San Diego Union Tribune article.
Dr. Yvette Saavedra’s recently released book Pasadena Before the Roses: Race, Identity, and Land Use in Southern California, 1771-1890 (University of Arizona Press) is a social and cultural history detailing how Spanish, Mexican, American and Indigenous groups’ competing visions of land use affected the formation of racial and cultural identity in Pasadena, California, during this period. She will be giving a public book talk and signing on November 15 at Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena at 7pm. Congratulations, Dr. Saavedra! Read more about the book here: https://uapress.arizona.edu/book/pasadena-before-the-roses
Congratulations to Dr. Tiffany Jones on her promotion to full professor!
Three history students, Jasmine Colorado, Marmar Zakher, and Natassja Martin have been accepted into the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship program. In outstanding recognition of their hard work and dedication to academic excellence, each student will be receiving financial assistance, research mentorship and graduate school application assistance which will provide them the platform to launch them into further graduate study in the humanities.
As part of Dr. Tiffany F. Jones' Study Abroad program to South Africa, CSUSB students honor Nelson Mandela's 100th birthday by giving to a Soweto Orphanage. See the full news item at https://inside.csusb.edu/node/16196
Dr. Tiffany Jones attended a seminar in Ghana. Read more about the seminar here: https://inside.csusb.edu/content/three-csusb-faculty-attend-seminar-ghana
PressTV interviewed Dr. David Yaghoubian about the Trump administration's intentions in Venezuela. Dr. Yaghoubian spoke live from Tehran, where he is conducting research. You can find more about the interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dZmhVJyuRQ& feature=youtu.be
Dr. Marc Robinson will join the Department of History at CSUSB this Fall as an assistant professor of African American history. He attend an oral history workshop at UC Berkeley. Learn mor about Dr. Robison's research on oral history history here: http://update.lib.berkeley.edu/2018/05/31/marc-robinson/
The university honored our very own Dr. Cherstin Lyon with BOTH the Outstanding Professor and Outstanding Advisor Awards for her excellence in teaching, scholarly activities and service to students. Congratulations, Dr. Lyon! Read more about Dr Lyon here: https://inside.csusb.edu/node/12231
Dr. Yvette Saavedra was re-elected to serve another two-year term to the National Association of Chicana and Chicano Studies (NACCS), as Chicana Caucus co-chair along with co-chair Dr. Isabel Millán, assistant professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Oregon. Saavedra and Millán organized and moderated the Chicana Caucus Plenary 'Reclaiming Power: Centering Queer Chicana Indígena Resistance and Histories.'
Additionally, Millán and Saavedra inaugurated the Chicana Caucus Publication/Creative Works Recognition, and awarded three student scholarships. Saavedra was also part of a workshop titled, “Developing a Guidelines for Good Practice in Chicana/o/x Studies,” which discussed issues of faculty of color recruitment, hiring, mentoring, and retention.
Photo participants Left to right:
Dr. Isabel Millan, University of Oregon
Dr. Gabriela Spears Rico, University of Minnesota
Dr. Osa Hidaglo de la Riva, Independent Filmmaker
Dr. Susy Zepeda, University of California, Davis
Dr. Yvette Saavedra, CSU San Bernardino
Our very own Dr. Kate Liszka won the College of Social and Behavioral Science's Outstanding Junior Faculty Award for her work in developing the CSUSB Egyptology program, her extensive research portfolio, and her service to CSUSB students. Congratulations!
Dr. Kate Liszka and a group of CSUSB students attended the the annual conference for the American Research Center in Egypt held in Tucson, AZ. It was a highly successful event for CSUSB. The attendees from left to right are:
Bryan Kraemer – RAFFMA part-time Egyptologist
Efren Perez – History Club President
Kate Liszka – Benson and Pamela Harer Fellow in Egyptology
Eva Kirsch – Director of RAFFMA
Benson Harer – Benefactor who made Egyptology at CSUSB possible
Nathanael Gonzales – History Major
Marmar Zakher – Vice President of the History Club
History students Danny Cervantes, Jacqulyne Anton win an Office of Student Research's grant! During the summer monthts they will be working with Dr. Huacuja Alonso on a research project about sound and policing. The project, titled 'The 'Noise Complaint' and the Politics of Sound: A Case Study in Southern California,' studies the criminalization of sound through an in-depth analysis of reports of noise complaints and violations published in two newspapers: LA Times and San Bernardino Sun from 1975 to the 1990s. The purpose of the study is to understand through qualitative analysis of sound reports in local newspapers how individuals conceptualized sound and came to understand silence as right.
Marmar Zakher's paper, 'From Female Moneylenders to Church Shares: The Coptic Town of Jeme,' won third place in the Undergraduate World History category at the Southern California Regional Phi Alpha Theta Conference. The paper analyzed the social economics of the people living in Jeme. Ms Zakher wrote an earlier verson of the paper in Dr. Liska's HIST 339 Culture and Society in Ancient Egypt class.
Our very own Tristian Arrieta gained admission to his first choice graduate program. He will join UC Riverside graduate program in education in June!
Jason Garcia presented his research on Chilean folk music at the the LASPP (Latin American Social & Public Policy Conference) at the University of Pittsburgh on March 23, 2018. He earned a grant from the Office of Student Research to attend the conferece. He completed the research for the paper titled 'Music is Power! Nueva Cancions Push for Indigineity' in Dr. Isabel Huacuja Alonso's and Santoni's classes.
(View of the groves at Citrus State Historic Park, Riverside, California)
CSUSB students, under the direction of Professor Cherstin Lyon and in collaboration with students at UCR and the project lead, UCR Professor Cathy Gudis, have conducted research to develop a new interpretive plan and a series of outdoor exhibits that will incorporate more stories of immigrant and migrant laborers into the landscape at the Citrus State Historic Park in Riverside. This project will serve as a model for the statewide California State Parks' 'Relevancy and History' project. California Citrus State Historic Park, the community partner for this project, serves as a pilot location for the “Relevancy and History” project, which aims to create a model for re-interpreting and re-invigorating State Parks Interpretation and Education Program. The State Parks are seeking new ways to better serve the public and to integrate students in the process. Student involvement is in keeping with the educational mission of the project and the park at large.
This year has seen an extremely impressive class of History undergraduates accepted into some of the most prestigious graduate programs in the country. Tomi Pulkkinen has been active as an editor and contributor to the department’s award-winning undergraduate journal, and he is now headed to the doctoral program in history at UC Santa Barbara. Recent graduate, Elvis Rivera Salinas, winner of numerous departmental honors including highest GPA and the J.C. Robinson Scholarship, is on his way to the University of Pittsburgh to begin work on his doctorate in history with renowned expert of Nicaraguan history, Dr. Michel Gobat. Emily Wild, another award-winning and outstanding student is off to Virginia Tech for her Master’s in History, with full funding support. Connor Gahre will begin his work also in a fully funded Master’s program at Miami University in Ohio. Arlene Gutierrez is currently completing her first year in the Master’s program at Johns Hopkins. Rocio Gomez was awarded with a highly competitive Latino Heritage Internship as part of the Hispanic Access Foundation, and she was placed at the Manzanar National Historic Site for the 2017 summer, further strengthening our department’s ties with Manzanar. Angela Tate will begin her doctoral studies in history Northwestern University (Evanston, IL), where she plans to focus on 19th and 20th century African Diasporic histories of the US and UK, with minor fields in Women's Studies and Public Humanities. Ms. Tate was selected as a Sally Casanova Pre-Doctoral Scholar for 2016-17 at CSUSB, and she was also chosen as an alternate for the Ford Foundation Pre-Doctoral Award, 2017-18.
“Fully Human and Fully Divine”
How Comparative Religious Studies Informs Theology
A Lecture with Dr. Christopher B. Hays
(Fuller Theological Seminary)
Wednesday November 6, 2019 2pm,
PL-4005, Pfau Library, Faculty Center for Excellence
We are pleased to announce that CSU-San Bernardino’s Alpha-Delta-Nu Chapter of Phi Alpha Theta History Honor Society is the recipient of this year’s Best Chapter Award for Division V colleges and universities. This award is reserved for chapters that have done an outstanding job of promoting the honor society and its mission on their campus. Drs. Jeremy Murray and Marc Robinson and their student members can be proud of this national recognition.
Longtime supporters of Egyptology at CSUSB, C. Kenworthey Harer and Cynthia Harer-Gibbs, the children of W. Benson Harer, generously donated more than 2,200 books worth over $300,000 to the John M. Pfau Library and the Robert and Frances Fullerton Museum of Art (RAFFMA) at CSUSB. For more information see https://inside.csusb.edu/node/27391
The W. Benson Harer Egyptology Scholar in Residence brings one of the world’s preeminent experts in the field to the university, serving as a part-time (single quarter) visiting faculty member to the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. This year we welcome Dr. Tara Prakash, assistant professor of ancient art at the College of Charleston in South Carolina. She will be teaching a course for both the departments of history and anthropology titled, “Gods, Kings, and Demons: Religion and Ritual in Ancient Egypt,” which critically considers the role of religion and ritual in ancient Egypt, and questions how much religion and ritual actually influenced the lives of different Egyptians. For further information see: https://inside.csusb.edu/node/26946