Department of History News

May 2023: The Department of History is pleased to announce the promotion of two faculty members.  Dr. Clarence Jefferson Hall Jr. was awarded tenure and promoted to the rank of associate professor, and Dr. Helmut Loeffler was promoted to the rank of full professor.  These promotions are effective as of August 25, 2023.  Congratulations to Dr. Hall and Dr. Loeffler!

October 2022: The Department of History announces the second installment in its new series, "Lectures in Inclusive History."  The next lecture, given by Dr. Clarence Jefferson Hall Jr., assistant professor in the Department of History at QCC, is entitled "Imprisoned Workers and Environmental Planning in New York's Adirondack Park."  Dr. Hall will give the lecture in Science 111 on November 9 at 12:10 p.m.  All are welcome.

October 2022: The Department of History was happy to co-sponsor a virtual event held on October 20 entitled "Exploring LGBTQIA+ Historic Sites in Queens."  This event, hosted by Aithne Bialo-Padin, Lecturer in the Department of History, featured Amanda Davis and Ken Lustbader of the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project discussing their work on embedding LGBTQIA+ history in the built and unbuilt environments of New York City, with a special focus on sites in the borough of Queens.  This event was the first in a year-long program of events and projects that are part of the larger CUNY LGBTQIA+ Consortium.

October 2022: Dr. Clarence Jefferson Hall Jr., assistant professor in the Department of History, visited the Adirondack Park Visitors Interpretive Center at Paul Smith's College in Paul Smiths, New York, and delivered a presentation based on his research on the histories of environmental regulation and incarceration in upstate New York.  This event was sponsored by Paul Smith's College and the Adirondack Council.

September 2022: The Department of History kicked off its new series, "Lectures in Inclusive History," with an in-person presentation given by Dr. James Nichols, Associate Professor of History, on September 28.  The series continues on November 9 with a presentation by Dr. Clarence Jefferson Hall Jr., Assistant Professor of History.

September 2022: The Department of History is pleased to announce the inaugural lecture of the department's new series, "Lectures in Inclusive History," to be given by Dr. James Nichols, Associate Professor of History, in Science Building Room 111 during club hours on Wednesday, September 28.  The title of Dr. Nichols's lecture is "Freedom Unbounded: Fugitives from Slavery and the Making of the U.S.-Mexico Border."  All are welcome to attend.

September 2022: The faculty and staff of the Department of History congratulate Dr. Emily Sohmer Tai, Professor of History, on the publication of Mapping Pre-Modern Sicily: Maritime Violence, Cultural Exchange, and Imagination in the Mediterranean, 800-1700 (London: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2022), an essay collection Dr. Tai co-edited with Kay Reyerson.  In addition to co-editing the collection, Dr. Tai co-authored the introduction and served as sole author of “Ghosts of Admiral Roger: Piracy and Political Fantasy in Tirant lo Blanc,” which is chapter 13 of the collection.  The Department offers its warm congratulations on Dr. Tai's impressive accomplishment.

July 2022: The Department of History congratulates Dr. Stephanie Rost, Assistant Professor of History, on the recent publication of her edited volume entitled Irrigation in Early States: New Directions, published by the University of Chicago Press.  Congratulations, Dr. Rost!

February 2022: The Department of History congratulates Dr. Ron Van Cleef, Assistant Professor of History, on the publication of his first monograph, entitled A Tale of Two Movements? Gay Radicalism in West Germany, 1969-1989, published by Metropol Verlag (Berlin).  Congratulations, Dr. Van Cleef!

April 2021: With sadness, the History Department notes the passing of Dr. Emil Polak, who died in his hometown of Sayville, New York on April 8 at the age of 84.  Dr. Polak worked at the college during its earliest years, teaching Ancient History courses and, through his many research trips and published scholarship, becoming a respected and renowned expert on Renaissance texts.  Dr. Polak was also a longtime member of the Medieval Seminar at Columbia University, in addition to serving in leadership roles for the Renaissance Society of America.  Faculty who knew and worked with Dr. Polak remember him as a kind and generous spirit with a great sense of humor.  Dr. Polak will be missed by all who had the privilege of knowing and working with him.  To learn more about Dr. Polak's scholarly pursuits, please read this article published in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

March 2021: Dr. Clarence Jefferson Hall Jr., assistant professor in the Department of History at QCC, discussed his recently published book during an invited talk and question-and-answer session sponsored by the Department of Environment and Society at Paul Smith's College in Paul Smiths, New York.  The event, conducted and recorded using Zoom, may be viewed online by visiting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knAJt3kYA9Q

March 2021: Congratulations to Dr. Emily Tai, associate professor in the Department of History at QCC, for her recent promotion to the rank of full professor, which will take effect at the beginning of the fall 2021 semester.  Bravo!

November 2020: Dr. Clarence Jefferson Hall Jr., an assistant professor in the Department of History at QCC, celebrated the publication of his first book.  A Prison in the Woods: Environment and Incarceration in New York's North Country was published by the University of Massacusetts Press as a volume in the series Environmental History of the Northeast. 

June 2020: QCC History Department Statement on Protests for Social Justice and Racial Equality

The faculty and staff of the Department of History at Queensborough Community College stand in solidarity with the calls for justice and equality resulting from the death of George Floyd.  We acknowledge the trauma created by the unjustified killing of Floyd and countless others both before and since May 25, 2020.  Every corner of the U.S. has been touched by police violence against people of color, including New York.  As students and scholars of the past, we are painfully aware of the many inequities that have shaped the lives of people of color in the U.S. and abroad.  We are also cognizant of the numerous harms posed to communities of color by law enforcement and criminal justice systems ostensibly designed to furnish equal justice to all. History faculty at Queensborough believe that historical knowledge and critical thinking are necessary for building a more just and peaceful world. In pursuing our mission as a community-based public education institution, we are well situated to provide educational opportunities to a diverse student body. But we could do better. Going forward, we will continue to foster classroom environments that respect diversity, promote critical inquiry, and foreground questions related to social justice.  The History Department will likewise aim to foster campus-wide dialogues on social and racial justice through public lectures, teach-ins, and film screenings beginning in Fall 2020.  #BlackLivesMatter

March 2020: Dr. Clarence Jefferson Hall Jr., an assistant professor in the History Department at QCC, presented a paper entitled "A Prison in the Woods: Environment and Incarceration in New York's North Country," at the Alumni Conference Room of the Angell College Center at SUNY Plattsburgh on March 5.  The College Art Museum invited Dr. Hall to present his research as part of its display of the "States of Incarceration" exhibit and sponsored the event.

December 2019: Dr. Stephanie Rost, assistant professor in the History Department at QCC, has received a 60,000 € research grant from the Gerda Henkel Foundation to support her ongoing archaeological fieldwork project (“The Umma Survey Project”) in South Iraq. The Umma Survey Project aims to conduct a comprehensive archaeological reconnaissance of an area of approx. 2000km² located in the vicinity of the modern town Al-Rifai in South Iraq. This area is of great historical importance as it once constituted the ancient province of Umma of the kingdom of the Third Dynasty of Ur (aka Ur III), which unified Southern Mesopotamia under one rule at the end of the 3^rd Millennium B.C. This kingdom is known for having produced an unparalleled historical record of over a hundred thousand cuneiform tablets on the day to day operations of an early state society. The largest and most comprehensive corpus of Ur III tables derives from the province of Umma. The majority of these texts document economic transactions. As such information is lacking for most pristine states, our ability to describe ancient economies that were capable of supporting early state institutions is limited at best. While the Ur III documents have the potential to provide an extraordinary detailed insight into the organization of an early state economy, they could so far not be exploited to their full potential. This shortcoming is due to the fact that the geographic context in which these economic transactions took place is very poorly understood. We lack the archaeological data that would allow us to map the location of production centers, the network of transportation routes and the movement of goods and services that are mentioned in these ancient records. The Umma Survey Project is addressing this shortcoming by collecting archaeological data (settlement data and landscape features, such as canals and water courses, etc.), to reconstruct the ancient landscape and historical geography of the Umma province. This project is directed by Dr. Rost in collaboration with Dr. Angelo Di Michele and Ahamad Gadim Ganim, Abdulhassan Makttoof, Loay Reissan Humood of the State Board of Antquity and Heritage of Iraq.