Eight women scholars affiliated with higher educational institutions in the United States were recently presented with awards at the 139th annual meeting of the American Historical Association in Chicago.
Beeta Baghoolizadeh, an associate research scholar at Columbia University’s Middle East Institute, is the author of The Color Black: Enslavement and Erasure in Iran (Duke University Press, 2024), which was awarded the Wesley-Logan Prize in African Diaspora History. The book examines race, gender, visuality, and memory in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Iran. Prior to joining Columbia University, Dr. Baghoolizadeh was an associate research scholar at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies at Princeton University and an assistant professor in history and critical Black studies at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. Dr. Baghoolizadeh is a graduate of the University of California, Los Angeles. She earned a master’s degree in Middle Eastern studies at the University of Texas at Austin and a Ph.D. in history from the University of Pennsylvania.
Catherine Tatiana Dunlop, a professor of history and philosophy at Montana State University, won the J. Russell Major Prize in French History and the George L. Mosse Prize in European Intellectual and Cultural History. Professor Dunlop was honored for her book The Mistral: A Windswept History of Modern France (University of Chicago Press, 2024). The book focuses on the environmental history of Provence’s violent and uncontrollable mistral wind. She is currently conducting research on the role of environmental knowledge in the planning, execution, and aftermath of the D-Day landings in Normandy in June 1944. Dr. Dunlop is a graduate of Stanford University. She holds two master’s degrees and a Ph.D. from Yale University.
Antoinette T. Jackson, professor and chair of the department of anthropology at the University of South Florida, was presented with the John Lewis Award for History and Social Justice. As the founder and leader of the Black Cemetery Network, Dr. Jackson’s work to recover and restore Black cemeteries exemplifies the intersection of historical work and social justice. She has been on the faculty at the University of South Florida for more than two decades. Dr. Jackson is the author of Speaking for the Enslaved Heritage Interpretation at Antebellum Plantation Sites (Routledge, 2012). Professor Jackson is a graduate of Ohio State University, where she majored in computer and information science. She holds an MBA from Xavier University in Cincinnati and a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from the University of Florida.
Alissa Klots, an assistant professor of history at the University of Pittsburgh, was awarded the Joan Kelly Memorial Prize in Women’s History for her book Domestic Service in the Soviet Union: Women’s Emancipation and the Gendered Hierarchy of Labor (Cambridge University Press, 2024). The book uses archival sources and oral histories to creatively uncover a hidden history of domestic work and workers in the Soviet Union. Before joining the faculty at the University of Pittsburgh in 2019, Dr. Klots taught at the European University at Saint Petersburg, Russia. Dr. Klots is a graduate of Perm State University in Russia. She earned a Ph.D. in history from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
Alison L. LaCroix, the Robert Newton Reid Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, where she is also an associate member of the history department, was honored with the Littleton-Griswold Prize in American Law and Society. Professor LaCroix was recognized for her book The Interbellum Constitution: Union, Commerce, and Slavery in the Age of Federalisms (Yale University Press, 2024). Professor LaCroix is also the author of The Ideological Origins of American Federalism (Harvard University Press, 2010). Dr. LaCroix is a graduate of Yale University and Yale Law School. She holds a Ph.D. in history from Harvard University.
Marcy Norton, professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania, won the Friedrich Katz Prize in Latin American History. She was honored for her book The Tame and the Wild: People and Animals After 1492 (Harvard University Press, 2024). The book provides a sweeping history of human-animal relationships in the centuries after 1492, explaining the origins of a contemporary paradox: The fact that humans continue to create enormous suffering for some animals while enjoying companionship with others. Prior to arriving at Penn in 2017, Professor Norton held a faculty position in the history department at George Washington University. She holds a bachelor’s degree and a Ph.D. in history from the University of California, Berkeley.
Gloria McCahon Whiting, the E. Gordon Fox Associate Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, received the AHA Prize in American History. She was honored for her book Belonging: An Intimate History of Slavery and Family in Early New England (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2024). In the citation for the award, the AHA states that “Whiting reveals the centrality of family and kinship to the creation — and ultimate destruction — of slavery in Massachusetts. She is working on a second book entitled Race and Policing in America’s Founding Era. Dr. Whiting is a graduate of Rice University in Houston, where she majored in English, history, and policy studies. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in history from Harvard University.
Amanda Wunder, a professor of art history, history, and global early modern studies at Lehman College of the City University of New York, was honored with the Leo Gershoy Award in Western European History. She is a cultural historian of early modern Europe with a focus on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spain. She was honored for her book Spanish Fashion in the Age of Velázquez: A Tailor at the Court of Philip IV (Yale University Press, 2024). The book examines the little-known archive of the Spanish royal tailor Mateo Aguado, revealing the worlds of the people who made and who wore this elaborate clothing, and all that it meant to them and their contemporaries. Dr. Wunder is a graduate of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, where she majored in history. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in history from Princeton University.