9th Annual Undergraduate History Conference, April 16-17

The Department of History at Ohio University hosts its ninth Annual Undergraduate History Conference April 16-17, 2015.

The conference opens on Thursday, April 16, at 5 p.m. with a keynote address by Dr. Alec Holcombe, assistant professor of Southeast Asian History at Ohio University, at the Athens County Historical Society and Museum on 65 N. Court Street in Athens.

The lecture is followed by the Phi Alpha Theta National History Honors Society induction ceremony and announcements of departmental undergraduate awards and fellowships recipients.

The conference continues on Friday, April 17, with three student paper panels starting at 9:30 a.m., with all panel presentations in Bentley Annex 402. The undergraduate papers cover a variety of topics, from cross-dressed women soldiers in the American Civil War to genocide in Cambodia.

Dr. Katherine Jellison, Professor and Chair, and Dr. Michele Clouse, Director of Undergraduate Studies, and conference organizers Dr. David Curp, Dr. Mariana Dantas, and Dr. Miriam Shadis, invite faculty, staff, and students to attend the conference and enjoy the variety, originality, and high standards of the undergraduate research conducted by history majors on the Athens and regional campuses.

Conference Program

Thursday, April 16
Keynote Address by Dr. Alec Holcombe on “The ‘Cao’ American” Athens, County Historical Society and Museum at 5 p.m.

Prizes, Awards, and Announcements:

• Phi Alpha Theta Induction
• Randolph Stone Historical Writing Contest
• Department of History Scholarship Award

Friday, April 17
Bentley Annex 402

9:30 – 9:50 a.m.
Conference Opening, Dr. Katherine Jellison

10 – 11:45 a.m.
Panel I: The Politics of Power from Above and from Below in World History
Chair: Dr. David Curp

• James Gresock, “The Devil through the Window: Ferdinand II and His Heavenly Mission”
• Emilee Kemp, “Newsboys Strike of 1899: How They Took on Hearst and Pulitzer and Won”
• Steven McClain, “Some Assembly Required”: Radicalization in German Political and Military Circles in the 1920s”
• Johnathon Scott, “American Foreign Policy toward Yugoslavia, 1948-1975: The United States’ Peculiar Relationship with the Tito Regime”

1 – 2:45 p.m.
Panel II: Lesser-Known Stories of the American Civil War Era
Chair: Dr. Paul Milazzo

• Josephine Barrett, “Congenital Peculiarities in the American Civil War Armies: Cross-Dressing Women Soldiers and 19th-Century Gender Norms”
• Julliette Eyen, “The Female Frontier: Expectations and Realities of the First Women Settlers of Ohio”
• Philip Hutchinson, “The Confederados: Vanguard of an American Exodus”
• Victoria McCollum, “We Will Conquer: Women in the Face of Destruction amidst the American Civil War”

3 – 4:45 p.m.
Panel III: War Crimes, Genocide, and Memory in 20th-Century History
Chair: Dr. Assan Sarr

• Spyro Boursinos, “Ba’athist Ideologies and War Crives and their Effect on Contemporary History”
• Katie Conlon, “‘Everybody Suffered Equally’: Defining Genocide and Constructing History at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal”
• Emily Irvin, “Complications after Killing Thousands: The Personal Conflicts and Effects of the Men Who Carried Out the Holocaust”
• Megan Ziegman, “From World War II to Present Day: Dealing with Ethnic Conflict in Russia”