History launches new blog!

Welcome to the Saint Mike's History Department's inaugural blog posting!

We hope that this blog will introduce you to the department and that future blogs will alert you to the exciting people and events in our corner of the campus.

First, let me introduce myself. I am Susan Ouellette, a Professor of History and American Studies. As an early Americanist I teach the American history courses that cover the colonial and Revolutionary eras. I also teach and research local history subjects including my courses on the Saint Albans Raid. One of my favorite courses is one I team teach with the College archivist, Elizabeth Scott: The Society of Saint Edmund in the Era of Civil Rights, which includes service to the SMC archives and a study tour to Selma, Alabama.

Our newest colleague in the History Department is Professor Kathryn Dungy who came to us this fall from Florida. She is obviously a brave soul to come to the frozen north and teach with us!

Professor Dungy is a Latin American specialist who is teaching the surveys in Latin American history and this spring will teach an upper level seminar on Race in the Americas. We are all excited about her courses and what she brings to our department in her expertise as well as her fresh perspectives.


Another nearly new faculty member is Professor Jennifer Purcell. As a historian of modern Europe with a specialty in British history, Professor Purcell teaches courses that explore a range of topics from empire to national identity to WWII. Her new book, The Domestic Soldier: British Housewives and the Nation in the Second World War(2010) is causing a stir.

This spring she will be offering a course on 19th century Britain that will include her signature style of combining literature, film, primary sources and scholarly readings.


Professor Ke-wen Wang is also a historian of the modern period, but specializes in East Asian topics. His work on Nationalist China, Japanese society and culture, and his current work on newspapers in Republican China is all reflected in his courses.

Among his courses this spring he will be team- teaching one of the students' perenial favorites with Hideko Furukawa, a professor from Modern Languages. This course, Japanese Culture, combines the historical with contemporary cultural and social perspectives.


Professor Douglas Slaybaugh is a modern American historian whose specialties include modern American politics and society in the 20th century. His courses range from a social and cultural history of the United States from 1865 to the present to one of his most popular courses: Presidential Elections.

The Presidential Elections course was taught in the fall of the 2008 presidential election when Barack Obama became the first black American president; students were fascinated by the history of that particular event and the way it resonated in the current election cycle.

Professor George Dameron is an historian of medieval and early modern Europe with a specialty in medieval Italy. His upper level seminars cover topics from the Black Death to gender and society in medieval Italy. He will become the interim chair of the department in spring 2011 and the appointed chair in fall of 2011.

His spring seminar, The Historian's Craft, is a study of the way in which historians across time and space have researched, interpreted and written historical accounts from ancient times to our own.

This spring will be the last full semester of teaching and advising for Professor Thomas Andersen, who will retire after more than forty years of teaching at Saint Mike's.

Over the years, he has taught survey and upper level classes on Early Modern and Medieval European topics.

His upper level courses include topics such as European Witchcraft, the Crusades, and the Roman Empire.



The History Department faculty invites you to come and visit us in person on the second floor of the library and to look for future posts on our blog!