Fall 2025 Newsletter - WashU History

Letter from the Chair, September 2025

Greetings from the Department of History at Washington University in St. Louis! This newsletter offers an update about our faculty and students, followed by links to recent news items about our various activities and achievements.

We have welcomed seven new faculty members to our ranks in recent years. Our most recent hire is Nataliia Laas, a Soviet historian with interests in environmental history. She joins three other recent hires at the assistant level: Anne Schult, a modern Europeanist investigating refugees in the 20th century; Marjan Wardaki, a South Asianist interested in the global history of science; and Dalen Wakeley-Smith, an Americanist writing about Roma and race-making. We have also added three full professors. Steve Hindle, a historian of early modern Britain, took up his position as the inaugural Derek Hirst Chair in 2022. Jonathan Judaken, hired in 2023, is our new Goldstein Chair in Jewish History and Thought. And Steve Miles, a historian of early modern China, is now back with us after spending a few years at the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology.ms are a successful bunch overall, doing everything from publishing books and running research centers to working as chairs, directors, school principals, and editors.

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Douglas Flowe - Dean's Award for Diversity Advancement

This award is given annually and recognizes contributions from Arts & Sciences faculty who advance diversity in research, teaching, or service. This award highlights transformative research, teaching, or creative practice that significantly advances and promotes diversity on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, neurological ability, socioeconomic status, age, nationality, or sexual identity.

Christina Ramos: One of Five Finalists for William H. Welch Medal

Christina Ramos The William H. Welch Medal is awarded to one or more authors of a book (excluding edited volumes) of outstanding scholarly merit in the field of medical history published during the five calendar years preceding the award.

In the Media

faculty interviews and editorials

See more faculty media appearances

1984 meets 2004

Peter Kastor A new history course on the year 1984 allows students to walk in the footsteps of WashU students 40 years ago.

Interview with KMOX on US-Russia Relations

Krister Knapp Krister Knapp, teaching professor in the Department of History at Washington University, joins Megan Lynch for the 1st part in a Total Information AM series about the relationship between the new Trump Administration and several superpowers on the world stage. Part 1, Russia.

Creating a Federal Government 

Peter Kastor Peter Kastor discusses the founders, the early workforce and the realities of management.

Featured in Documentary Series

Douglas Flowe Douglas Flowe was featured in San Juan Hill: Manhattan’s Lost Neighborhood, an hour-long documentary directed by Emmy Award winner Stanley Nelson, a preeminent documentarian of the African American experience. 

The Department of History Remembers Richard J. Walter

Richard J. Walter, Professor Emeritus Richard J. Walter, a professor emeritus and former chair of the Department of History in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, died Sunday, Aug. 11, 2024. He was 85.

Richard Harrod, a doctoral candidate in the Department of History, has been named a Fulbright U.S. Scholar for 2024-25. The award, granted by the U.S. Department of State and the Fulbright Program, will allow him to research the history of education in the Sultanate of Oman.

Richard Harrod

PhD Candidate

Kim Lacey, a doctoral candidate in WashU’s Department of History in Arts & Sciences, has won a 2025-26 Korea Foundation (KF) Scholarship for Graduate Studies.
Lacey’s project will examine the lives of ordinary Korean migrants who moved to the Russian Far East and the lives of their descendants across Eurasia.

Kim Lacey

PhD Candidate

During the summer of 2024, Antoinette Manteau explored the rich diversity of languages and dialects in the transatlantic French and Francophone world through the Newman Exploration Travel Fund (NEXT) award. Throughout this extensive trip across North America and Europe, Manteau explored the global boundaries of French identity.

Antoinette Manteau

Undergraduate in History

Mj Jones, Vy Nguyen, and Nicole Spangler have been named 2025 Living History Scholars by the Department of History. The program encourages undergraduates to conduct innovative research that engages with history in creative ways and aims to contribute knowledge beyond the university.

Living History Scholars

Undergraduate

Events

Visit our events site to learn more about upcoming Fall 2025 / Spring 2026 events!

WashU History Events