Divisional News

125 Years of History

As part of the University’s 125th anniversary, the Division explored its own history in November by installing a timeline (on display through mid-June) in the Social Sciences Research Building.

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Comments on “Evolution of a Division,” Fall 2015/Winter 2016 Dialogo

David Mitch, AB’73, AM’74, PhD’82 (Economics), emailed to comment on the entry on the Department of Economics:

I was rather surprised, indeed appalled, to see . . . that 1925 was given as the year in which the Department of Economics was established. By my understanding, the Department of Political Economy goes back to the founding of UChicago, when J. Laurence Laughlin arrived. What happened circa the mid-1920s was that the department changed its name from Political Economy to Economics. I did appreciate the pictures of [Professor] Margaret Reid [PhD’31] as a very young woman (she was around in the flesh in my years at U of C in the mid-1970s) and an even younger John Nef Jr. along with his dad.

Mr. Mitch is correct. The Department of Economics has been around for the full 125 years, going through the name change in 1925.—Ed.

Raven Deerwater, MAT’83, PhD’91 (Education), also commented on the story:

I have always been impressed with the production quality and writing of Dialogo, and this latest issue holds to these high standards. However, I was greatly disturbed by the omission of the education department in “Evolution of a Division.” I am sure that the article intended to give origins to the Division as it is currently stated, but its presentation is that of a history and a timeline. I know education is not completely forgotten, as there was a nice obituary of Philip W. Jackson in the issue. I just hope that this can be a teachable moment for relations between the Division and its alumni whose department is no more.

Alumni News

In September James V. Wertsch, PhD’75 (Education), was named the inaugural David R. Francis Distinguished Professor at Washington University in St. Louis. Wertsch is also the university’s vice chancellor for international affairs and director of the McDonnell International Scholars Academy. Focusing on collective memory and identity, he’s taught at Northwestern; the University of California, San Diego; and Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Charles D. Brooks, AM’81 (International Relations), is now an adviser to the Technology Partner Network of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Brooks has served as Xerox’s vice president and client executive and as director of legislative affairs for the Science and Technology Directorate, both for the US Department of Homeland Security.

Molly E. Flaherty, AM’12, PhD’14 (Psychology), was jointly awarded a Newton International Fellowship by the Royal Society, the British Academy, and the Academy of Medical Sciences in November. The fellowship is given to promising researchers early in their careers in the humanities or the physical, natural, or social sciences. Flaherty studies Nicaraguan Sign Language to better understand human development and language structure.

At a ceremony in October, Stephen J. Morewitz, PhD’83 (Sociology), was honored with the San José State University Author Award for Kidnapping and Violence: New Research and Clinical Perspectives (Springer, 2016). Kidnapping is Morewitz’s ninth book, and this is his fourth book award. He teaches in San José’s Department of Sociology and Interdisciplinary Social Sciences.

Patrick Houlihan, AM’03, PhD’11 (History), received the Fraenkel Prize in Contemporary History for his book Catholicism and the Great War: Religion and Everyday Life in Germany and Austria-Hungary, 1914–1922 (Cambridge University Press, 2015). Houlihan has taught in the Core and the Department of History and works as an assistant director in the University’s career advancement office. His next book will be written with funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council through the University of Oxford.

This winter Yong-Hak Kim, AM’85, PhD’86 (Sociology), was elected to a four-year term as president of Yonsei University, where he’s been a sociology professor since 1987. In his inauguration address on the university’s Seoul campus, he promised to help students prepare for an era of longer life spans and a culture in which, he said, sympathy for one another is crucial.

At his National Prayer Breakfast in February, President Barack Obama recounted a story from Rami Nashashibi, AM’98, PhD’11 (Sociology), founder of Inner-City Muslim Action Network in Chicago. The day before, during Obama’s first visit to a mosque in America, Nashashibi told him that following the December 2015 shooting in San Bernardino, California, he was hesitant to pray in Marquette Park, not wanting to draw attention to his family. But, Obama recalled at the breakfast, after Nashashibi’s seven-year-old daughter questioned him, Nashashibi thought of all the times he’d told her the story of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Marx marching to the same park, “enduring hatred and bigotry, dodging rocks and bottles and hateful words, in order to challenge Chicago housing segregation and ask Americans to live up to their highest ideals.”

So Nashashibi put down his rug and prayed.

“I can’t imagine a better expression of the peaceful spirit of Islam,” Obama said, “than when a Muslim father, filled with fear, drew from the example of a Baptist preacher and a Jewish rabbi to teach his children what God demands.”

Lula M. White, AB’60 (Education), AM’63 (History), in recognition of her activism, was given the Thurgood Marshall Award by the Black Law Student Association of the Quinnipiac University School of Law in Hamden, Connecticut. White, a retired high school history teacher, organized protests while at the University of Chicago, was arrested in 1961 as a Freedom Rider, and participated in the March on Washington in 1963.

Alumni Books

Ronald S. Calinger, PhD’71 (History)
Leonhard Euler: Mathematical Genius in the Enlightenment (Princeton University Press, 2015)

Leonhard Euler chronicles the life of one of the greatest mathematicians and theoretical physicists of all time. In this first full-scale biography of Euler (1707–83), Calinger highlights his life and achievements in mathematics and in areas including shipbuilding, cartography, and music theory. Calinger is professor emeritus of history at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, and the founding chancellor of the Euler Society.

Helen Kiyong Kim, AM’97, and Noah Samuel Leavitt, AM’97
JewAsian: Race, Religion, and Identity for America’s Newest Jews (University of Nebraska Press, 2016)

Using in-depth interviews, married couple Kim and Leavitt examine race, religion, and ethnicity in the increasing number of Jewish and Asian American households. JewAsian explores the everyday lives of these intermarriages and how their children negotiate their identities in 21st-century America. Kim is an associate professor and Leavitt is an associate dean of students at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington.

Nancy Waters Ellenberger, AM’72 (International Relations)
Balfour’s World: Aristocracy and Political Culture in the Fin De Siècle (Boydell & Brewer, 2015)

This book chronicles how prime minister Arthur James Balfour (1848–1930) helped build a new “emotional regime” among Britain’s political elite at the turn of the century. Using journals, letters, and publications, Ellenberger explores both the public and private lives of Balfour’s political and social circles at a time of dramatic cultural shifts related to class, gender, imperialism, media, and capitalism. Ellenberger is a professor of history at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.

Timothy Stewart-Winter, AM’03, PhD’09 (History)
Queer Clout: Chicago and the Rise of Gay Politics (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016)

Called “original, important, and unfailingly smart” (Robert Self, Brown University), Queer Clout traces the political mobilization of Chicago’s LGBT community, from the postwar era to the present, and its alliance with the city’s African American activists. Weaving together activism and electoral politics, Stewart-Winter uses oral histories and archival records, including those of undercover police officers and newly available papers of activists, politicians, and city agencies. He is an assistant professor of history at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, in Newark.