Unraveling the issue of Holocaust forgiveness
Casey Bush interns at Buchenwald Memorial
Undergraduate Research
As a history major, you might collaborate with faculty or your peers on research, or apply for funding to support your own research on a project of your choice during the academic year or during the summer. You’ll have the opportunity enroll in our honors program and to present your research.
Honors in History
Interested in a long-term research project? Consider pursuing honors work, where you’ll work closely with an adviser on a topic that interests you. Below, check out recent topics and titles by our undergraduate honors students.
2019
- John Short, “Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, and the Origins of Neoconservatism”
- Benjamin Ravel, “The Causes and Consequences of the Pueblo Crisis”
- Gregory R. Farrington, “A Far More Potent Spell: Music and Identity in the American Civil War”
- Alice Dillon, “Solidarity and Inclusion: An Exploration of Lesbian HIV/AIDS Activism through Photography”
- Benjamin Bergeron, “Stage Presence: Musicians’ Influence on the Anti-Apartheid Movement”
2018
- Casey Bush, “The Unforgivable: A Historical Analysis of Forgiveness After the Holocaust”
- Spencer Cronin, “Confronting the Past: The Holocaust as Narrated Through Facing History and Ourselves”
- Khalil Power, “The Preserver of Judaism: How Women Imagines, Shaped, and Asserted a United States-Jewish Practice through Cookbooks”
- Teide Riley-McNary, “The Role of Poetry in History: Seamus Heaney and the Troubles.”
2017
- Adelaide Petrov- Yoo, “The Political Role of Public Opinion in the Societ invasion of Afghanistan”
- Meghan Paradis, “Writing Under Watch: German Jewish Writers and Weimar German Women’s Magazines (1924-1930)”
- Marisa Natale, “‘I Went Down Exactly to Where People Were’: Women in the Palestinian Nationalist Movement, 1987-2005”
- Devin Melle, “Washed Ashore: Black American Whalemen at Home and Abroad”
- Emily Langley, “Girls Next Door and Revolutionaries: How Communism Transformed the Roles of Women in the Vietnam War.”
- Samuel Korstvedt, “Remembering the Mongol Empire”
- Santiago Jose Herdoiza Ponce, “Lurking Behind the Shadows: A Study on The Alliance for Progress and US Interventionism in Ecuador During the Kennedy Administration”
- Patrick Fox, “Shifting Paradigms in the Levant: The Six Day War, Isreal, and the Forces of Change in the Middle East, 1967-1973”
- Rachel Christ, “Twentieth-Century America Witchcraft: A Study of the Relationship between Female Empowerment and Contemporary Interpretations of Witchcraft”
Fall Fest and Academic Spree Day
Once you’ve conducted your research, practice how to present it to others. Held annually, Clark’s Fall Fest in October and Academic Spree Day in April celebrate undergraduate research. Many history majors participate in these events and present their research.
Fall Fest
- ” ‘Good Things Are Comin’ ‘: The Art and Ideas of Tumen Soliz,” Michael Ippolito ’21 (Fall Fest 2019)
- “Representation and Autonomy in the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair,” Toni Armstrong ’19 and Khalil Power ’18
Academic Spree Day (Spring)
- “Women Push to Adapt Judaism as Seen Within Jewish Cookbooks, 1889-1935,” Khalil Power ’18 (Honors Thesis)
- “Confronting the Past: The Holocaust as Narrated Through Facing History and Ourselves,” Spencer Cronin ’18 (Honors Thesis)
- “Seamus Heaney: The Role of Poetry in History,” Teide Riley-McNary ’18 (Honors Thesis)
Fifth-Year Research (B.A./M.A.)
If you excel in our undergraduate program in history, you might consider applying for Clark’s Accelerated B.A./M.A. Program, allowing you to continue your historical research. As a master’s student, you would work closely with a faculty adviser.
2019
- Spencer Cronin, “Conveying the Unimaginable: A History of American Holocaust Education”
- Adelaide Petrov-Yoo, “Decision Makers and Their Beliefs: Digging deeper into the simplistic narrative of Afghan ‘Freedom Fighters’”
2018
- Patrick A. Fox, “Unstable Sands and Winds of Change: The Regime of Hafiz al-Asad and its Interactions with the United States (1966-1976)”
- Mathew Dale Rice, “Deacon of the Cold War: Jimmy Carter, his Christian Faith, and his Foreign Policy”
2017
- Pingzhen Hu, “Red Star over Africa: Examining Chinese foreign policy in Africa since the Cold War”
- Robert Burns, “An Era of Transition: The Evolution of the Image of the Founding Fathers in American Culture between the Civil War and the Second World War”
- Benjamin Davis, “The United States and South Africa during the Kennedy Administration 1961-1963: John F. Kennedy, the United States, and South Africa”
2016
- Gregory Gaines, “Calvary, Stormaktstiden and the Military Revolution”
- Anne Marie Goguen, “Seeking Refuge in the Netherlands: The Dutch Kindertransport”
- Faith Jean, “From Enemies to Allies: American Perception of German Women during the Crisis Years”
- Austin Howard Alexander, “Because Your Cause Is Right and God Is on Your Side: Jimmy Carter, His Foreign Policy Advisors, and the Rise of Islamic Fundamentalism in the Cold War”
- Lauren Cyr, “‘The Path of Action’: Terrorism and Preparedness after 9/11”
- David LaJeunesse, “The Flyboys vs. ‘The Acme Gun Club’ The US Navy and the Development of Naval Air Power and Aircraft Carriers between World Wars I and II”
2015
- Jeffery Wasson, “American Citizens and British Subjects: How Perceptions of the United States Influenced Canadian Self-Government”
- Derek Medeiros, “Riding into the Sunset: The Image of the American Frontier in Post-Suez Britain, 1965- c.1968”
