Tahseen Ali

I am currently in the fifth semester (third year) of the PhD program in History at the University of Houston-Main Campus. My major is Modern Britain & Empire, with emphasis on British Empire history from the end of the seventeenth century to the 1950s. I am particularly interested in the years leading up to the break-up of the British Raj in the Indian subcontinent in the aftermath of World War II. A lot has been made about the success of Mohandas Gandhi and his non-violent movement in persuading the British to leave the subcontinent. My research is geared towards challenging this assumption, and to focus on and examine the efficacy of revolutionary armed resistance to the British Empire. It is through pursuing this line of inquiry that I hope new light will be shed on what really prompted the British Empire to leave the subcontinent in the 1940s and the possibilities a revolutionary struggle held for the subcontinent. My BA was in History & Political Science and my MA in History, both from the University of Houston-Main Campus.

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James Arlington

I am a first year PhD student at the University of Houston studying medieval European history and pursuing a World history minor.  I received my BA and MA at Midwestern State University.  I have held various jobs over the years from soldier, interrogator, linguist, grave digger and human resource manager.    My current research interest include the rise of Christianity in the West.  Specifically, the methods employed by the Carolingian missionaries to convert their barbarian neighbors.

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John Barr

     My name is John Barr and I am a first year PhD student at the University of Houston. My specialty is nineteenth-century U.S. History with a
focus on the antebellum South and the Civil War. I want to write my dissertation on how Texans responded to the assassination of Abraham
Lincoln. I want to examine what various groups thought of Lincoln's death and use those responses as a way to illuminate various aspects of the Civil War in Texas, the South, and the Union.
I am from Richmond, Kentucky and I received my B.A. from the University of Kentucky in 1984 and my M.A. from the University of Houston/Clear Lake in 1988. I have been teaching in the public schools of Texas for twenty-two years. I have taught juniors U.S. History/AP at Kingwood High School for nearly fifteen years.

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Jessica Borboa

My specialty is in Mexican modern history and more broadly speaking Latin American history.  However, I regard myself as a Latin Americanist.  I arrived to the University of Houston from San Diego with a Bachelor of Arts in History and Master of Arts in Latin American History.  Currently, I am at a transition stage and am in the process of taking my comprehensive exams.  I am most anxious and excited to fully devote my time to researching and writing the dissertation.  The dissertation project is being developed as a history of urbanization and modernization of the US-Mexico borderlands.  I am most concerned with the development of border cities and hope to do a case study of Tijuana.  Tijuana was founded as a pueblo in 1889 and by the 1990s emerged as a viable cosmopolitan city that with an infamous reputation.  Much of that past has plagued the history of Tijuana and Tijuanenses.  Through my research I hope to engage issues of urban development and landscape, geo-politics, migration and immigration, militarization of the border, continuance of the vice, influx of American capital, and the way Tijuanenses shape the city they live in.  Other interests include applied social theory, gender and sexuality, and the use of art as historical text.

 

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Brenda L. Broussard

I have been a Houston Cougar for 19 years! Fresh out of high school I entered the University of Houston and began my BA in History. I took a dozen years off to start a family and then came back a few years ago to complete the degree. Now, I am a second year graduate student planning on completing the MA this May and beginning the PhD program next fall. My area is non-contiguous U.S. territorial history 1850 to present. I compare and contrast the congressional handlings of the different territories and attempt to explain why some were granted statehood (Alaska and Hawaii), some their independence (Philippines and Guam), and why some continue to occupy a position somewhere in-between (Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Northern Marianas, and American Samoa). For my masters I have focused primarily on Puerto Rico’s relationship with the United States and how this foreign-yet-domestic status affects labor, national identity, and mainland America’s perceptions of its overseas citizens.

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Gary Bryant

This is my third year as a Ph. D. student at the University of Houston. I passed the comprehensive examination in the spring of 2006 and am now a Doctoral Candidate. My area of specialization is 19th Century American History with a focus on Southern History in the antebellum and Civil War periods. My dissertation topic concerns the entry of southern women into the paid labor force during the Civil War and what if any lasting effect resulted from this experience. My educational background includes a B. A. in Political Science from Mississippi State University, a Master of Liberal Arts from Houston Baptist University, and an M. A. in history from the University of Houston.

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Holle Canatella

I am a second year Ph.D. student in medieval European history with a minor in World History. I am also currently pursuing a graduate certificate in Women's Studies. I received a BA in history with a minor in English from Texas A&M University in 2002 and an MA in history at UH in 2005. For my dissertation I am researching spiritual friendships between churchmen and both religious and secular women in the High Middle Ages, primarily in, but not limited to, the Anglo-Norman world. I am particularly interested in not only the women themselves, but also the way in which men viewed the women with whom they shared friendships. While the misogyny of the Middle Ages is well-known, it is also true that many churchmen respected and valued women as spiritual guides and teachers, and these kinds of friendships had a long tradition in the Middle Ages. I am using a variety of primary sources including saints' lives, correspondence, artwork, and chronicles. Some of the relationships I am examining are: Christina of Markyate and the various churchmen in her vita, Anselm of Canterbury and Ida of Boulogne, Ivo of Chartres and Adela of Blois, Gregory VII and Matilda of Tuscany, and Goscelin of St. Bertin and Eve of Wilton.

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Maria Corsi

I am a second year MA student at the University of Houston History Department. My major field of study is European Medieval History. Specifically, I study the economic history of Denmark. I am particularly interested in town formation and the growth of trade in the High Middle Ages. I want to understand the underlying causes of this growth. For my thesis, I am researching the influence of a stronger central authority in Denmark and the Catholic Church after the conversion to Christianity on economic growth within the kingdom. I received a BS in Economics and Anthropology from the University of Houston. I also spent a year studying economics at the University of Copenhagen before starting on my MA.

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Courtney DeMayo

My name is Courtney DeMayo, and I am a student of medieval European history with a minor in world history. I grew up outside of Rochester, NY and completed my BA at Hartwick College in Oneonta, NY. I completed my MA here at UH; my thesis was titled "Episcopal Dignity and Political Theory in the Writings of Gerbert of Aurillac" and was completed in the fall of 2005. I am currently a 2nd year PhD student in medieval History working under Dr. Sally Vaughn. My current research and tentative dissertation topic is on the academic network associated with the cathedral school of Reims, c. 970-1000.

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Jesse Esparza

I entered the History graduate program at the University of Houston in the fall of 2002 after a short period of teaching in the public schools in San Antonio. I received a Maters from Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas with a minor is Women's Studies. I am interested in exploring the history of Chicano education; youth and social movements i.e. walkouts; and the intersections of race, class, gender, and culture. I currently live in Del Rio, Texas undergoing the research stages for my dissertation project which is essentially the study of a Mexican American-controlled school district in Texas; perhaps the first and only one in the history of the state after 1836. For this project I intend on exploring Mexican American educational and political activism, the role of the federal government i.e. educational lawsuits, and Chicano educational autonomy.

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Juan Manuel Galván

I am first year PhD student in Latin American History.  I grew up in rural Mexico and migrated to the US as an adult.  I graduated from the University of Houston with a B.A. in History in 2003 and began graduate studies in 2004. My interests include Mexican agrarian struggles, US-Mexico Borderlands, immigration, cultural history, and cultural studies.  My dissertation project focuses on the Rebellion of the Sierra Gorda during the 1840s.  I am working with Professors John Mason Hart, Susan Kellog, Andrew Chestnut, and Thomas O’Brien.

 

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Natalie Garza

My name is Natalie Garza, originally from San Antonio, TX, and I am in the third year of the PhD program at the University of Houston. I began my academic career at Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH. After receiving my undergraduate degree in History in 1998, I worked for four years in college admissions, and in 2002 I pursued my master’s degree with a focus in Public History at Northeastern University in Boston, MA. I have completed coursework at U of H and expect to take comps in the spring. My area of study is Latin American migration with a focus on Mexico and Central America. Of particular interest is how migration contributes to the development of culture and identity both among migrants and the communities they leave. Placing this experience within the larger context of globalization I hope to understand the circumstances that persuade working people to leave their homes and on a local level, how individuals choose to navigate within this context through their culture, identity, and transnational existence.    

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Trinidad Gonzales

My name is Trinidad Gonzales and I’m from the Lower Rio Grande Valley, Texas. Currently I am 2005-2006 Smithsonian Latino Predoctoral Fellow at the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. I received my B.A. in Philosophy and M.A. in History from the University of Texas-Pan American and will defend my dissertation, under the direction of Guadalupe San Miguel, Jr., this May (2006) at the University of Houston. My dissertation, “The World of México Texanos, Mexicanos, and México Americanos: Colonization and the Construction of Transnational and United States Nationalist Identities in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, 1900-1930” examines the history of ethnic Mexican identities during the last phases of United States conquest and colonization. Through an interdisciplinary approach the dissertations explores the socioeconomic, political and cultural history of the area. My research and teaching interest include Twentieth Century U.S., US-Mexico Borderlands, Chicana/o History, Latina/o History, and Theory as utilized by historians in an interdisciplinary methodology. Issues of ethnicity, race, gender, culture and identity tie my research and teaching interests across fields.

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Isaac Hampton II

Hello. Thank you for taking the time to read my bio. Currently, I am in the third year of the PhD program at the University of Houston. My focus is military history. Specifically, the social, cultural and combat aspects of military service in the United States armed forces. My dissertation will focus on the African American experience in Vietnam 1965-1973, the influences that the Black Power movement had on African American soldiers and issues of masculinity that all soldiers faced regardless of color during the Vietnam War. I am originally from Ohio and I am a veteran of the first Gulf War. I earned my bachelors degree from Urbana University (in Urbana Ohio, Champaign County. Not Champaign Illinois) and my Masters degree from Texas Southern University in Houston, Texas.

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Steven Higginbotham

I completed my undergraduate degree in May 2005 at Texas State University, as a major in history and political science. In the summer of 2005, I moved to Houston, obtained a teaching position at Dobie High School in Pasadena ISD where I teach US History, Sociology, and Psychology. I am also the coach of the Academic Decathlon team, and enjoy playing guitar, violin, and piano. My research interests include American social movement history and post-WWII US foreign policy.

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Clarissa Hinojosa

My name is Clarissa Hinojosa. I received my Bachelor of Arts at the University of Texas at Austin; I received my Master's at (Southwest) Texas State University in San Marcos, under the direction of Dr. Eugene J. Bourgeois. I am currently in my second year of PhD coursework, studying under Dr. Cathy Patterson.I specialize in Early Modern England. I study at the relationship between the central government and the localties during the "Mid-Tudor" period: the reigns of Edward VI, Mary I, and the first part of Elizabeth's reign. Specifically, I look at appointments to commissions of the peace (JPs were arguably the most important local official responsible for enforcing the monarch's laws) to determine whether appointments were influenced by the radically different agendas of successive monarchs. In my thesis, in which I used a sampling of six counties, I found changeovers in personnel so great as to amount to purges. For my dissertation, I hope to broaden the depth of my research by expanding the number of counties, possibly including late Henrician data to compare to Edward VI's reign, and incorporating material and data not available in this country.

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Felipe Hinojosa

I am a doctoral student in U.S. 20th century history at the University of Houston. My research interests include Chicana/o history, race/ethnicity, gender, and Latino religion. I am also earning a minor in Latin American history. I am originally from Brownsville, TX (from el valle de South Texas) where I graduated from Rivera High School in 1995 and started my undergrad career at UT Brownsville/TSC. In 1999 I earned a bachelor's degree in English at Fresno Pacific University in Fresno, CA. From 1999-2004, I worked for a non-profit organization in South Texas where I participated in community development programs on both sides of the border. I also served as an anti-racism education trainer with the Damascus Road Anti-Racism Program. While involved in this work I earned a Master's degree in History at the University of Texas Pan American in Edinburg, TX. My dissertation topic will revolve around the construction of Latina/o identity within religious arenas. Specifically, I will examine the Minority Ministries Council of the Mennonite church, which from 1968-1974 brought together Chicanas/os from South Texas, Puerto Ricans from the Island and New York, and African Americans primarily from the East Coast. I am interested first in how and why these groups came together. But, more importantly, I am interested in the processes of identity politics that surfaced as each group coalesced around similar, yet contested, notions of ethno-religious identity.

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John F. Hinrichs

After thirty-five years pursuing business, law, and financial planning while attending night classes at the University of Houston, I have finally arrived at the pre-comps juncture. Broadly speaking, I am interested in Environmental History with a specific research interest in the law and regulation of Texas groundwater. Because the destiny of Texas groundwater is supercharged and permeated by law, politics, and science, a historical analysis of its law and regulation is important for an evaluation of this resource. I entered the doctoral program in U.S. History in the Spring of 2005. Previous coursework includes a M.A. in History from Sam Houston State University in 2003 and these antecedent degrees: B.B.A., J.D., M.S., and LL.M. I am divorced and have three grown sons and one grandson.

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Ramona Hopkins

 

        I am a first year MA student at the University of Houston's History Department.  I am from Iowa and got my BS in Elementary Education with an endorsement in Social Studies and Special Education from Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa.  While at school I participated in an internship for a summer at an open air agricultural museum in Des Moines called Living History Farms.  Though I taught for four years it became clear that public school teaching was not for me.  History is what I love.  I began to work at Living History Farms full time and discovered that my interest lies in modern medical history.  I wish to study medical research, education, and practice in America and Europe from 1700-1900. 

 

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Stephen Kirby-Calder

I am a first year M.A. student. My area of study is the effect of black market economies on the formation and growth of cities in the American West. I earned a B.A. in History and Political Science from Texas State University and a J.D. from the Michael E. Moritz College of Law at The Ohio State University. I am a member of the State Bar of Texas.

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Clayton Lust

I am a PhD student in American history writing my dissertation on the Camp Logan incident in 1917. I earned both my B.A. (Magna Cum Laude - 2001) and my M.A. (2003) at The University of Houston. My research interests include African Americans and the U.S. military, 20th century civil rights struggles, as well as the role of violence in U.S. society. With this project I hope to extend backward a framework that suggests a connection between struggles for civil rights and foreign policy concerns of the U.S. My plan is to defend my dissertation in Spring 2007, and then head off for a new challenge, at an institution other than U.H. for the first time since 1998.

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Victoria "Vicki" Myers

I am a first year Master's student in U.S. History. While my thesis is still taking shape, I am interested in studying Southern Women circa the Civil War. Prior to starting at U of H, I received my BA in History from Millsaps College in Jackson, MS.

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Timothy J. O’Brien

I’m in my first year in the PhD program. I study twentieth century U.S. history. My master’s thesis was a biography of the late blues singer Lightnin’ Hopkins. My dissertation is about the successful thirteen year battle to save a large public housing project in Houston. It examines class and race issues, politics, social justice, organizing, and government policies. The narrative is centered on the project’s resident leader, a disabled African American male whose exceptional organizational abilities and work ethic were the main factors in the success of the struggle. My research interests include African American history, social justice movements, and music history. I received my bachelor’s degree in economics from the Pennsylvania State University and my master’s in history from the University of Houston.

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Amy O'Neal

My name is Amy O'Neal, and I study medieval history, especially medieval women. I am ABD (all but dissertation); I can hardly believe it because it seems like I've been here forever. I received my BA from Texas A & M and my MA from the University of Houston. My dissertation topic is Anglo-Norman women. I am looking at how society viewed women before and after the Conquest in England: What were there models? Where is the line between acceptable and unacceptable behavior? What does a woman behaving badly look like? How did expectations of women change over their lifetime?

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Katy Oliveira

I am a third year MA student. My area of study is United States History after 1877. My concentration is primarily post 1945. My thesis examines the growth of consumer credit. I am primarily focusing on the expansion of credit cards use during the post World War II period and its effects on the emergence of modern American consumer culture. I am also currently the Assistant Editor at The Houston Review of History and Culture, which is a magazine featuring the popular history of the Houston area and operates under the Center for Public History at the University of Houston.

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Gregory Peek                                                                                                                                                      

I came to the University of Houston from the University of Texas at Austin. I received a BA in history in the spring of 2002 with a minor in philosophy, a vocation that I still enjoy to pursue, and finished my MA at UH in the spring of 2005. Generally speaking, my work has focused on 19th century questions regarding westward expansion, the escalation of sectional tensions, the disruption of the American Democracy, and the eventual breakdown of the United States in1861. In particular, I am interested in exploring the intersections between cultural, racial, and economic identities, affiliation with political parties, and the coming of the civil war. My MA Thesis looked at the antebellum political careers of 3 politicians from Indiana and traced how these individuals forged their socio-cultural identities with their political party allegiance. I am in my first year in the Ph.D. program and have yet to choose a dissertation topic but hope to potentially expand upon my thesis. Irregardless, I hope to write a history of antebellum American politics that successfully synthesizes both elite and grass-roots views and justifications of party affiliation.

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Mike Phifer

 

I am a first year MA student at the University of Houston History Department. My area of interest is Anglo-Norman and Angevin studies with an emphasis on the political history. I am originally from Lancaster, PA and received a BA in History from Millersville University in Millersville, PA.

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Uzma Quraishi

As a first-year M.A. student, my general area of interest is contemporary U.S. History, with a minor in World History. More specifically, I would like to study the history of South Asian immigration to the U.S. Relevant topics include the origins of Asian immigration (pre-1900 and post-1965), immigrant exclusion, and interethnic tension and struggle in the U.S. Of further significance are issues of immigration legislation and its relationship to Imperialism, both international and domestic. I received my B.A. in English and History from the University of Houston, and am secondary certified to teach both subjects.

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David Ralley

     I am a first year PhD student in History at the University of Houston.  I received my BA at the University of Texas at Austin and my MA at Texas A&M University.  I am currently editor and partner at Halcyon Press Ltd in Houston.  I have taught courses in Texas and U.S. history at Houston Community College, the University of Houston-Downtown, and Houston Baptist University.  My interests include post-Civil War Texas and the South.  I am interested in exploring the rise of the urban South and the decline of rural life and culture in Texas and the South.  I am married and have two children.

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Alberto Rodriguez

I am a second year PhD student at the University of Houston History Department. My area of study is American History from 1860s to 1945. My specialty is Black/Brown relations on the South Texas Borderlands and the West with an emphasis on gender and identity formation. Simply put I want to understand how Blacks and ethnic Mexicans got along or did not. My research interests include Chican@, Latino, African American, BlacXican history, race/ethnicity,Gender, and Queer Theory. My dissertation will use hybridity and transculturation to analyze Blacks and Mexican/Mexican Americans on the border and try to understand the divisions between both ethnic groups. The purpose of the project is to Blacken the Borderlands and move South Texas into the West. What is meant by Blacken the Borderlands is that most of the scholarship based in the South Texas Borderlands and even throughout the Borderlands are Anglo/Mexican/Mexican American discourses. Before getting to the University of Houston I received a BA and MA in History from the University of Texas Pan American in Edinburg, Texas.

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Diana Sanders

I am a first-year Masters student in the History Department at the University of Houston. My area of study is medieval Europe, with a concentration on Norman England and France in the 11th and 12th Centuries. My research interests include the dissemination, control and means of mass communication in the Middle Ages as it relates to social interaction, beliefs and behavior. Prior to pursuing graduate work I received a BA in Mass Communications, Radio/TV from the University of Houston, and enjoyed a 23-year career in local television news.

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Phil Sinitiere

My name is Phil Sinitiere and I am currently ABD in the University of Houston’s history department. Also an instructor at a local college preparatory school, I began coursework in fall 2002 and passed my comprehensive exams in April 2006. I received both a BA (1999) and MA (2001) in history from Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas. My research and writing focuses on American religious history, world history, and African history. Relative to American religious history, I study ministers, laypeople, and what I call the social geography of religious experience, which is to say the social, cultural, and spiritual factors that constitute religious identity. My work on ministers ranges from the life and times of the eighteenth-century parson Jonathan Edwards to the rising popularity of twenty-first century megachurch pastors like Joel Osteen. My dissertation, tentatively titled “Expelling Jesus: Popular Religion and Pastoral Dismissal in British North America” and directed by James Kirby Martin, uses cases of pastoral dismissal in colonial New England to investigate construction of religious identity, expressions of lay piety, and dynamics of popular religion. My work in world history examines the field’s historiography and its pedagogical imperatives, while I also study contemporary expressions of pentecostal Christianity in places such as Latin America and Africa. With Africa, my work centers on Sufism in northern and eastern regions of the continent, as well as the political, cultural, and social history of Sudan. I received two writing awards for my research and writing on Africa (written in seminars taught by Kairn Klieman): a departmental Zeta Kappa Award (2004) for “Islam in Africa: Intersections, Negotiations, and Mystical Spaces in Sufism,” and the World History Association/Phi Alpha Theta Prize (2005) for “Navigating the Indian Ocean: Exploring the Textures of an African Diaspora.” For more information, please visit my website: http://www.jard.org/philsinitiere
 

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Lucrecia Solano

I have a bachelor’s degree in Economics from the Tecnológico de Monterrey, México and a Master’s Degree in Modern Mexican History from the Universidad Iberoamericana, in México City from. My dissertation: “LA MUERTE DE VENUSTIANO CARRANZA: ENTRE LOS RECUERDOS DEL PORVENIR Y LAS MEMORIAS DEL PASADO” (VENUSTIANO CARRANZA’S DEATH: BETWEEN THE MEMORIES, FUTURE AND PAST) received special recognition for the project’s originality. It employed economic, sociologic, literary, and historical theories through a post-modern and interdisciplinary narrative.  Currently, I am a Ph.D Candidate in History at the Universidad Iberoamericana, Campus Santa Fé, México. The program emphasizes historical theory, cultural history, post modernism and post colonialism.
Due to family and political reasons, I moved to Houston at the end of 2002. I am a third year Ph.D student in the history Latin American Program working under the direction of John Hart. My work uses trans-nationalism, borderlands, identity, and consciousness; focusing in the U.S.A. transnational business’s workers in Latin America, paying special attention to miners, their identities and consciousness; emphasizing in the workers of the border mining towns, as a specific process within the borderlands.
 

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Jeffrey Womack

I am working on my MA, with a focus on American history.  I graduated from Baylor University in 2002, with a double-major in English and History.  I worked as a corporate trainer and middle school teacher prior to beginning my studies at UH in the spring of 2006.  I am extremely interested in identity formation and the structure/relationships of power in the United States.  I also have an interest in environmental and ecological history.  I do not currently have a narrowly defined thesis topic; I am a man looking for a project!

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Kimberly Youngblood

I am a third year PhD student in the University of Houston’s History Department. My area of study is American History post 1877. My specialty is environmental history post World War II. I have an MA in Public History from the University of Houston as well. My thesis focused on the Brio toxic waste site in Friendswood, Texas and the interaction of the role of the government and its enforcement of the Superfund law to the public, the media, and the corporations cited for the waste. My dissertation will examine the role of the shrimping industry in Galveston Bay. By examining state and federal legislation, market forces, fishing practices and people’s use of resources this analysis will reveal how these factors impact the ecology of the bay. I am the Managing Editor at The Houston Review of History and Culture which is a magazine operating under the Center for Public History and features popular history for our region.