corcoran department of history

What lessons has the past taught us about containing diseases? Christian McMillen suggests that particular social and biological conditions historically have given rise to the emergence of epidemics and pandemics. McMillen is a professor in the Corcoran Department of History and associate dean for the social sciences in the College and Graduate School of Arts […]

August 2020 marks the 75th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of WWII. Chad R. Diehl gives us a personal and poignant look at a unique bombing survivor’s representation of trauma through the Japanese art of tanka. Diehl is an assistant professor in the Corcoran Department of History […]

“The implications of study of many ecological artifacts are becoming more and more obvious in their indictment of climatic change,” explains H.H. “Hank” Shugart. Shugart is the W.W. Corcoran Professor of Natural History in the Department of Environmental Sciences in the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences at the University of Virginia. We […]

  A conference celebrating the bicentennial of the founding of the University of Virginia was sponsored in May 2018 by the International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello in cooperation with the American Philosophical Society. The resulting book of essays, The Founding of Thomas Jefferson’s University (ed. by John A. Ragosta, Peter S. Onuf, Andrew […]

Revolutions strain diplomatic relations, and Andrew O’Shaughnessy describes how the American Revolution was no exception. Mr. O’Shaughnessy is a professor in the Corcoran Department of History in the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Virginia and serves as Vice President of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation and Saunders Director of […]

Thomas Jefferson was a bit surprised by the youthfulness of George Long, the University of Virginia‘s first faculty member to arrive on Grounds, according to Andrew O’Shaughnessy. Mr. O’Shaughnessy is a professor in the Corcoran Department of History in UVA’s College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and serves as Vice President of the […]

Lifetime Learning‘s UVA at Oxford Seminar (sold out) will take place at Trinity College, University of Oxford from September 14-20, 2019. Andrew O’Shaughnessy and Jeanie Grant Moore will lead an in-depth exploration of “The Old World and the New: Britain and America.” In the article below, Mr. O’Shaughnessy gives a glimpse of the unconventional Nancy […]

Lifetime Learning‘s UVA at Oxford Seminar will take place at Trinity College, University of Oxford from September 14-20, 2019. Andrew O’Shaughnessy and Jeanie Grant Moore will lead an in-depth exploration of “The Old World and the New: Britain and America.” Mr. O’Shaughnessy is a Professor of History in the Corcoran Department of History at the […]

Herbert “Tico” Braun, an associate professor in the Corcoran Department of History, teaches an Engagements course on the individual and society in the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences’ New Curriculum at the University of Virginia. In Fall 2019 he will serve as the director of Valencia First, UVA’s new study abroad immersion […]

In recognition of Earth Day on April 22, Justin McBrien, PhD Candidate, Corcoran Department of History at the University of Virginia, has contributed “Living in the Anthropocene.” Justin was awarded the 2018 Frank Finger Graduate Fellowship for Teaching, awarded annually to a teaching assistant in the College of Arts & Sciences in recognition of stimulating […]

Originally published in Slate Magazine, June 23, 2017. Written by University of Virginia College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences Ph.D. candidates Sophie Abramowitz, Eva Latterner, and Gillet Rosenblith. Reposted with permission. Sophie Abramowitz specializes in 19th Century American, 20th Century American, African American, Cultural, and Sound Studies as a Ph.D. candidate in the […]