November Faculty Update

Clayton Brown was invited to give a research presentation titled, “Preserving China’s Patrimony: Early Sino-American Collaboration in Cultural Heritage Management,” at King’s College, University of Aberdeen in Scotland as part of the Society for East Asian Archaeology. Brown also led a study abroad to Oxford this summer with Ravi Gupta.

Lawrence Culver coauthored an article, “Navigating Climate, Culture, Nature, Science, and Race: A Roundtable on Climate History in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era,” in the Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, 24 (2), April 2025, 200-223. Culver also organized a conference session, and presented a paper as part of that session, at the American Society for Environmental History’s Annual Meeting in Pittsburgh. His paper was titled, “Jimmy Carter's 'Lost' Born-Again Christian Environmentalism.” Additionally, he presented two conference papers at the Pacific Coast branch of the American Historical Association Annual Meeting in Santa Clara, California: 1) “Sunshine and Noir: Finding Disaster History in California’s Promotional Past,” and 2) “The Nature of the Federal State: From Gilded to Gutted?” Finally, Culver published a peer reviewed chapter in Natural Disasters in the United States: Making Sense of Risks and Vulnerability titled “Disaster Made Manifest: The Federal Role in U.S. Natural Disasters.”

Chad Ford wrote an article for Deseret News titled, “Lasting Peace in the Middle East Depends on Transformed Relationships.” 

Nichelle Frank presented two papers at the Western History Association held in Albuquerque: 1) “For a Better Life: The Legacy of Harm in Western Mining Towns,” and 2) “From Removal to Recreation: Lessons from Cleaning Up Western Mining Communities.”

Lisa Gabbert and Lynne McNeill were inducted as AFS Folklore Fellows. Established in 1960, the Fellows of the American Folklore Society is an honorary body of folklorists, and election to the Fellows signifies outstanding contributions to the field. Members of the Fellows have produced a significant number of important articles, books, and other scholarly productions or exhibitions on folklore, and have provided meritorious service to the Society and the discipline of folklore studies.

Taylor Gombos’ article, “The Novara Circumnavigation: Liberals, Colonial Fantasy, and the Mid-19th Century Habsburg Political Equilibrium,” was published in the journal, Central European History.

Victoria Grieve received a Schlesinger Library Research Support Grant from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University for a new project, a biography of Esther E. Peterson, a Utah native and advocate in the labor, commerce, and women's rights movements. Grieve is also the 2025 recipient of Montana State University's Distinctive Collections Travel and Access Award. Her research there will focus on labor history in and around Yellowstone National Park. Finally, Grieve received the 2025 Fishman Travel Grant for research at the Reuther Library at Wayne State University.

Ravi Gupta presented two papers at the World Sanskrit Conference in Kathmandu, Nepal. The first was titled, “Can Empirical Observation Influence Scriptural Testimony? An Exploration through Jīva Gosvāmī’s Sarva-samvadini.” The second was a co-authored paper on utilizing computational linguistics for analyzing Sanskrit poetry. Gupta also led a study abroad to Oxford this summer with Clayton Brown.

Amanda Katz received the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award to Greece in Spring 2026. While in Greece, Amanda will teach Science and Technology in World History and develop curriculum. Katz also presented a paper titled “The Humanist and the Technocrat: Humanities Education for Engineering Professionals” at the Society for the History of Technology Conference at the University of Luxembourg. She also participated in a roundtable called “Environmental History in the Technical Classroom” at the European Society for Environmental History meeting in Uppsala, Sweden.

Patrick Mason has been quite active, speaking to various news outlets about the death of Latter Day Saints President, Russel Nelson, as well as the rise of political violence in America. Mason also hosted Nobel Peace Prize winner Leymah Gbowee in the Arrington Conversations series.

Sauda Nabukenya wrote an article titled, “Rethinking Law through Vernacular Records: Archive Encounters and the Recovery of Native Court Records in Uganda,” that was published in the Transactions of the Royal Historical Society.

Colleen O’Neill traveled to the Navajo Nation to deliver the keynote address titled “Rekindling the Warrior Spirit: Honoring Kenneth White, Sr. and Dan Press” at a community-centered conference called “Rekindling the Warrior Spirit Conference on Indigenous Health Sovereignty: Hope and Healing for Humanity.”

Tammy Proctor received an American Philosophical Society Franklin Grant for sabbatical research in the UK this fall on her book project, “Waterloo to Brexit.” Proctor also published two articles: 1) “The Thrill and Agony of Relief: Quaker Women's Foreign Service and the History of Emotion,” in the History Workshop Journal 99 (Spring 2025): 98–122 (co-authored with Ellen Ross), and 2) Roundtable on Daniela Cagliotti’s book, War and Citizenship, in Rassenga Storica del Risorgimento 111:2 (2024): 150-157 (translated into Italian). She also gave an invited talk “Europe, War, and the Birth of American Global Power” as part of the University of Nevada – Las Vegas’s University Forum Lecture Series in October. Finally, she is the PI on a $25,000 grant from the Educating Character Initiative to host a convening at USU in December – the project is titled “Climate and Resilience: The Role of Character Education and Peacebuilding” and is offered under the auspices of the Heravi Peace Institute.

Afsane Rezaei presented her paper titled, “In Defense of a Digital Accent: Rethinking Fluency in a Diverse Digital Culture” at the American Folklore Society’s annual meeting in Atlanta.

James Sanders wrote a prologue for the new Spanish edition of his first book, Republicanos indóciles:  Política popular, raza y clase en Colombia, siglo XIX. (Translated by Isidro Vanegas). Sanders also published a chapter titled, “`Una aprobación que vale más, la del pueblo soberano’: Soberanía popular y democracia,” in Historias de lo político en Colombia: Vol. 2, De república a nación, 1853-1903. Additionally, he gave a keynote address titled, “La Vanguardia en América”: Nuestra Tarea para Desafiar la Historiografía Global Actual,” as well as a roundtable on “Senderos Historiográficos: permanencias, rupturas y avances” at XV Seminario de historia del Caribe colombiano: Historias y historiografías más allá del Caribe in Barranquilla, Colombia. Lastly, Sanders gave an invited lecture at the Universidad del Magdalena in Santa Marta, Colombia.

Susan Shapiro gave a presentation titled, “Nēpioi!  Fools and Foolish Actions in the Odyssey,” at the fall meeting of the Utah Classical Association hosted here at USU.

Dominic Sur was interviewed for the podcast, Treasuring the Feminine in Tibetan Buddhism.