Past News and Events

Faculty Presentations and Publications 2017-18

Jennifer Black published, “Gender in the Academy: Recovering the Hidden History of Women’s Scholarship on Scrapbooks and Albums,” in the Fall 2018 issue of the journal, Material Culture. In April 2019, Dr. Black presented her paper "Policing Fakes: Early Trademark Regulation in the US," at the Spring Research Seminar of the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society hosted by the Hagley Museum and Library in Wilmington, DE. This November, Dr. Black will present "'The Genius of Pictorial Advertising': Images and Consumer-Centered Advertising in the US, 1830-1900" at the Commercial Pictures and the Arts and Technics of Visual Persuasion conference in Delaware.

Dr. Black also recently finished mentoring a student exhibit on the changing scope of Main Street Pittston, PA, which you can read more about here. Dr. Black was also recently recognized by Proclamation of Recognition by the City of Pittston, for her work with the Greater Pittston Historical Society and MU students. She published two articles in 2017: “Exchange Cards: Advertising, Album-making, and the Commodification of Sentiment in the Gilded Age,” Winterthur Portfolio 51, no. 1 (2017): 1-56; and “Citizenship and Caricature: Teaching the American Past with Images,” in Art & Public History: Approaches, Opportunities, and Challenges, ed. Rebecca Bush & K. Tawny Paul (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017), 47-70. In April 2018, Dr. Black will present a paper at the annual meeting of the Business History Conference.

Christopher Stevens published an article on the Libyan Debate on June 20, 2017 in the Diplomacy and Statecraft Journal. The study argues that the "coercive diplomacy perspective needs slight modification to account for the Libyan case."

Stevens, Christopher A. 2017. The libyan debate: Coercive diplomacy reconsidered. Diplomacy & Statecraft 28 (2) (04/03): 320-43.

The Department of History and Government congratulates the following faculty on receiving research grant funding for 2018-2019:

• Dr. Allan Austin, “The Limits of Racial Sympathy: Popular Culture & Remembering the Wartime Exile & Incarceration of Japanese Americans”
• Dr. Jennifer Black, “Branding Trust: Advertising & Trademarks in the US, C. 1830-1920”
• Dr. Rebecca Padot, “The Active Shooter Policies of Colleges in a Post 9/11 Era”
• Dr. Christopher Stevens, “Image Theory & Strategic Relations in the Post-Soviet Space”
• Dr. Luke Williams, “Parties Matter, Even When they’re Weak: Party Battles in the Progressive Era”

The Department of History and Government congratulates the following faculty on receiving research grant funding for 2019-2020:

• Dr. Allan Austin, for "Finding (White) Redemption in Japanese American Confinement: Snow Falling on Cedars and Historical Narratives of Exile and Incarceration."
• Dr. Jennifer Black, for "Branding Trust: Advertising & Trademarks in the US, 1830-1920."
• Dr. Rebecca Padot, for "The 2018 Tax Law and the Impact on Nonprofits."
• Dr. Yanqiu Zheng, for "In Search of Admiration and Respect: Chinese Cultural Diplomacy in the US, 1875-1975," and "'Chinese' Food in Postcolonial Taiwan: Business and Narration, 1954-1979."
• Dr. Luke Williams, “Parties Matter, Even When they’re Weak: Party Battles in the Progressive Era”
• Dr. Christopher Stevens, for "Image, Theory and Strategic Relations in the Post-Soviet Space."

History in the Making: Collecting and Interpreting the Artifacts of American Life

This webinar will be held via Zoom on October 19th at 7:00pm and will talk about how museums help us think about our contemporary moment, and how they identify and display items that illustrate historical events. Contact Dr. Jennifer Black at jblack2@misericordia.edu to access the Zoom link

You, Me, and History: How Memoir and Storytelling Explain Our Past and Present

This webinar will be held over Zoom on October 26th at 7:00pm and will talk about how our lives are records of history. To access the Zoom link, contact Dr. Jennifer Black at jblack2@misericordia.edu.

Speakers and Events 2018-19

September 4th, 5:00pm - 6:00pm

GLNS Club Fall Kick-Off
Mercy Hall 379
Food will be provided

September 18th, 8:30am - 12 Noon

Constitution Day!
Banks Lobby
Student Poster Presentation and Judging

October 1st, 6:30pm

“Missing Me One Place, Search Another’: Keywords, Digital Archives, and the Search for the Next Great American Novel,” a lecture presented by Zachary Turpin, Ph.D., who found not one, but two lost books written by Walt Whitman: “Life and Adventures of Jack Engle,” a Dickensian city mystery novel, and “Manly Health and Training,” a hair-raising, kitchen-sink wellness guide for urban men, through archival research. Dr. Turpin will explain how, far from being in the final days of great literary finds, we are entering a new era of digital sleuthing and discovery. He will name two more lost Whitman novels that may be out there, and will show the audience where and how to begin looking for them.
Dr. Turpin is assistant professor of American Literature at University of Idaho, and a Kluge Fellow of the Library of Congress. Sponsored by the Soyka Fund for the Humanities at Misericordia University.
Alden Trust Room 219, Sandy and Marlene Insalaco Hall
Free/Open to the Public!
Contact R. Lucas Williams, Ph.D., at rwilliams1@misericordia.edu, 570-674-3047.

Tuesday, October 23rd, 6 - 8PM

GLNS Speaker Panel: Lieutenant Meditz, Detective Schaffer
Insalaco Hall 218/219

Tuesday, October 15, 4pm-5:30pm

History Program Welcome Back Event

Tuesday April 21, 12:30pm-1:45pm

GLNS Senior Celebration

Speakers and Events 2017-18

September 14, 9:00am

Dr. R. Luke Williams presents a master class on Aaron Kaufer.
McGowan Room, Bevevino Library
Click here for more information on the master class on Aaron Kaufer.

September 19, 12:30pm - 1:30pm
Constitution Day Panel Discussion: "A Review of Trump's
First Year in the Presidency"
McGowan Room, Bevevino Library
Click here for more information on this panel.

September 29-30 2017
Digital Humanities & Pedagogy Symposium
Funded by the Soyka Fund for the Humanities

• Friday 2:30-5:30pm Technology Workshops, INS 218-219
• Friday 7pm Keynote Address: Digital Humanities in the Classroom / Dr. Michelle Moravec, McGowan Room, Bevevino Library
• Saturday 8:30a-2:30pm, Teaching Workshops, INS 218-219

For more information on the Symposium and to RSVP, click here.

October 16-19, 2017
Reformation Anniversary Panels
Insalaco Hall
Dr. Christopher Stevens will speak in Panel I on October 16th at 7:00pm about The Lessons of the Thirty Years' War: Then and Now
For more information on the Reformation Anniversary Panels, click here.

January 16, 2018
A series of film screenings and discussions will be held during the week of January 16, 2018, in commemoration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. More information about these events can be found here.

March is Women's History Month

Check out the Women's History Month tab for more information and events!

March 17, 2018
National History Day Region 2 Contest
8am-5pm, Insalaco Hall
Read more about the History Day event here!

Student News

TED 2021-22 First-attempt Pass Rates

MU Secondary Ed Citizenship Pass Rate 100%
(State Pass Rate = 75%)

Sean Boylan, senior history/secondary education major, was named to the 2021 Academic All-America® Division III baseball team, as selected by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA). The team recognizes the nation's top student-athletes for their combined performances on the field and in the classroom.

Ashleigh Rose (History-for-Business) is spearheading the effort to market "Public History in the Pandemic" as part of her capstone thesis for Fall 2020. 

Sara Shields is building a digital exhibit on African Americans in the New Deal, as part of her public history coursework for Fall 2020. 

Students in Dr. Black's Introduction to Public History course (Fall 2020), are supporting a major collecting project to document the experiences of the Misericordia community during the COVID-19 pandemic.  The project is funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, and organized by Maureen Cech, Misericordia's University Archivist. Read more about their work here.

Internship Placements

• 2020- Sara Shields, Anthracite Heritage Museum, Scranton, PA. Kyle Shea, Luzerne County Historical Society, Wilkes Barre, PA. 
• For the summer of 2019, Sarah Sporko worked at the National Federation of the Blind in Baltimore, MD on a paid internship funded by the Soyka Fund for the Humanities. 
• Ashleigh Rose has won a prestigious spot interning with the National Cemetery Association, a division of the Office of Veteran's Affairs (Washington, DC).  
• Sarah Sporko (History / GLNS major) has won a prestigious internship at the National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC, for the spring 2020 semester.

To read more about our interns' experiences, please visit the Interns' Corner Blog.

Sarah Sporko (History / GLNS major) has won a prestigious internship at the National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC, for the spring 2020 semester

Ashleigh Rose (History for Business major) will be interning with the Office of Veterans’ Affairs, Digital Media Group for the 2019-2020 academic year

Sarah Sporko (History / GLNS major) was selected to be a SURF fellow for the 2018 session, for the public history project “Anthracite Photographers, Photographers of Anthracite”

In July 2018, History major Briana Scorey presented a paper at the Eighteenth International Hemingway Conference in Paris, France.

Sarah Sporko (GLNS / History) was awarded a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) for 2018, to assist Dr. Black in preparing an original exhibit for the Anthracite Heritage Museum (Scranton, PA).  The exhibit, Anthracite Photographers, Photographers of Anthracite opened on December 1, 2018 and is currently on display at the Anthracite Heritage Museum. Sporko’s research was also featured in The Carbondale News.

History Majors Present Research at the Pennsylvania Historical Association Annual Meeting.

In October 2017, history majors Briana Scorey and Amber Kelley presented research posters at the Pennsylvania Historical Association conference in Scranton, PA.

Nicole Negron (class of 2016) recently accepted the position of Education and Volunteer Coordinator at Eckley Miners' Village and Museum.

Quaker Project in the News

Intern's Blog

Misericordia places students in professional internships across the region. Follow their experiences through our special interns' blog.

In the spring of 2016, GLNS major John Eisenhauer (class of 2017), studied foreign policy at American University in Washington, DC, as part of MU’s Semester in DC program. John is shown here with Congressman David Jolly of Florida. While in DC, John also interned in Jolly’s office in the House of Representatives.

GLNS Major Recalls Meeting with Justice Scalia

Students Collaborate with Center for Nursing History to Preserve Regional History