SCHOOL OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
History Faculty
Richard Aquila, Ph.D., Ohio State University
Professor of History and American Studies
Teaching and Research Interests: U.S. social and cultural history (especially recent U.S. history, the American West, American Indians, and popular culture/mass media)
Books:
Sh’Boom; Or, How Early Rock & Roll Taught Us to Stop Worrying and Love America’s Cold War Culture (In Progress)
Home Front Soldier: The Story of an Italian-American and His Family During World War II
Wanted Dead of Alive: The American West and Popular Culture
That Old Time Rock & Roll: A Chronicle of an Era
The Iroquois Restoration: Iroquois Diplomacy on the Colonial Frontier
Articles: Dr. Aquila’s articles have appeared in a variety of journals, including Western Historical Quarterly, Journal of the West, Journal of Popular Culture, Indiana Magazine of History, NPR Quarterly, Popular Music and Society, The History Teacher, and American Indian Quarterly.
Public History Projects: Dr. Aquila has written, hosted, and produced numerous public history documentaries for National Public Radio. His weekly radio series, Rock & Roll America, was syndicated on NPR and NPR Worldwide, and was nominated for a Peabody Award. As a Distinguished Lecturer of the Organization of American Historians, Aquila gives public lectures at universities and school systems across the country.
Catherine Bae, B.A., M.A., Ph.D.
Assistant Professor. Ph.D., Stanford University, 2008
Dr. Bae teaches East Asian history, with an emphasis on Modern Japan (1600 to the present), gender theory, and popular culture. Her courses encourage the development of critical thinking through close readings of primary and secondary sources. She is currently working on a manuscript based on her dissertation, a study of Japanese girls' magazines and changing ideas regarding adolescent femininity vis-à-vis the maternalist ideology of "good wife, wise mother."
Major Publications:
"Girl Meets Boy Meets Girl: Heterosocial Relations, Wholesome Youth, and Democracy in Postwar Japan" in the "Girl, Body, Nation" special issue of The Asian Studies Review (Fall/Winter 2008).
Leigh-Ann Bedal, B.A., M.A., Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania, 2000
Teaching interests include archaeology, Old World civilizations, human prehistory (cultural and biological evolution), and cultural anthropology. Research interests include the archaeology of the Near East and Mediterranean, urbanization, and garden archaeology.
Dr. Bedal directs the archaeological excavations of the Petra Garden & Pool Complex located in the royal complex of the Nabataean capital at Petra, Jordan. http://www.homestead.com/petragarden/poolcomplex.html http://www.doaks.org/research/garden_landscape/projects/petra_garden_feasibility_study/
Major Publications:
Bedal, L.-A., K. L. Gleason, and J. G. Schryver (with archaeobotanical report by J. H. Ramsay and coinage report by J. Bowsher) 2007 The Petra Garden and Pool Complex, 2003-2005. Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 51: 151-76.
Bedal, L.-A. (with J. Schryver) “Nabataean Landscape and Power: Evidence from the Petra Garden and Pool Complex.” In Crossing Jordan: North American Contributions to the Archaeology of Jordan. Edited by T. E. Levy, et al. Pp. 375-83. London: Equinox (2007).
The Petra Pool-Complex: A Hellenistic Paradeisos in the Nabataean Capital (results from the Petra Lower Market survey and excavation, 1998). Gorgias Dissertations: Near Eastern Studies 4. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press (2003).
“Desert Oasis: Water Consumption and Display in the Nabataean Capital.” Near Eastern Archaeology 65/4: 225-34 (2002).
Amy Carney, B.A., A.M., Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Ph.D., Florida State University, 2010
Modern Germany, 20th Century Europe
Recent publications:
“Das Schwarze Korps and the Validation of the SS Sippengemeinschaft,” in Ideology and Morality in Nazism. (forthcoming)
“Nazis, Cardassians, and Other Villains in the Final Frontier,” in Star Trek and History. (forthcoming)
“Herrenmenschen: Plan und Wirklichkeit im Dritten Reich,” in Streitfall Evolution: Eine Kulturgeschichte. (forthcoming)
Elena Dodge Corbett, B.A., A.M., Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Ph.D., The University of Chicago, 2009
Dr. Corbett teaches the history of the Middle East from the coming of Islam until the present, with a focus on the late 18th century until today. She is particularly interested in questions of nationalism and communal identity in the Arab world after the end of the Ottoman Empire. Dr. Corbett’s research to date has focused on the history of Jordan, understanding what role archaeology, antiquities and cultural heritage have played in building national and other communal identities in the face of challenges at home and abroad to official narratives of the legitimacy of the nation-state and its rulers. She is now working to publish the results of her research. Dr. Corbett ‘s interests also include Islamic intellectual history and Arabic language pedagogy. She is a passionate proponent of undergraduate study abroad initiatives.
Recent publication:
“Great Britain, the U.S. and Paradigms of Modern Jordan’s Ancient Identity,” in Studies in the History and Archaeology of Jordan, Vol. 10. Amman: The Department of Antiquities of Jordan, 2009. Pp. 279-283.
Ralph L. Eckert, B.A., M.A., Ph.D.
Associate Professor. Ph.D., Louisiana State University, 1983
American Revolution, Civil War and Reconstruction, and Military History
Books:
John Brown Gordon: Soldier, Southerner, American (1993)
Articles In: Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Georgia Historical Quarterly, Atlanta History: A Journal of Georgia and the South, Dictionary of American Military Biography, Encyclopedia of the American Revolution, History of Pennsylvania Legislature, Reference Guide to the United States Military, The Encyclopedia of the United States Congress.
Glenn Kumhera, B.A., M.A., Ph.D.
Associate Professor. Ph.D., University of Chicago, 2005
Medieval European History
Recent publication:
“Promoting Peace in Medieval Siena: Peacemaking Legislation and Its Effects,” in War and Peace: Critical Issues in European Societies and Literature, 800–1800, Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture 8.
John Rossi, B.A., M.A., Ph.D.
Associate Professor. Ph.D. Rutgers University, 1988
Teaching and research interests include the history of the United States since 1877, American foreign relations, business and economic history, East Asian and Vietnamese history, and historiography. All courses emphasize reading, writing, and critical analysis. Upper-level writing intensive courses also include research into original historical sources. This approach to teaching helps students develop and hone important research, writing, and thinking skills. A number of students have been able to turn research papers written for these courses into published articles.
Books:
Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Automobile Insurance: Samuel P. Black, Jr. and the Rise of Erie Insurance, 1923-1961 (Routledge, 2001), with Samuel P. Black, Jr.
History on the Internet: A Student Guide, 1999-2000 (Prentice Hall, 1999), with Andrew T. Stull.
Articles In: Business History Review, Essays in Economic and Business History, The Historian, EH.Net, Proceedings of the Woodrow Wilson National Symposium, Forging the American Century, The American Experience in World War II, The Erie Times-News, and The Journal of Erie Studies.
Participation in Scholarly Organizations: Trustee and Secretary-Treasurer of the Economic and Business Historical Society, Program Chair for the 2003 Annual Meeting of the Economic and Business Historical Society.