History and Politics at USFSP

04/09/2025

10/27/2022

We are delighted to announce the launch of the second (and final) phase of the Lost Voices project. We invite you to view more than 8,000 pages of original documents from St. Augustine's Diocesan Archive (along with their accompanying transcriptions and translations). The site now includes searchable biographical profiles for more than 75,000 individuals.

Begin your investigations here:

www.laflorida.org

It has been a unique privilege to work on this project, and on behalf of everyone at La Florida, we thank you for your continued support.

05/10/2022

Congratulations to Hannah and Morgan!

Morgan Greig will attend the prestigious University of Cambridge in England, and Hannah Tweet will attend top-ranked University of Michigan in Fall 2022. Both are some of the most renowned research universities in the world.

10/29/2021

Congratulations to Dr. Francis!

10/01/2021

Morgan Greig has always been interested in history. But it wasn't until he enrolled in a paleography course where he studied historical manuscripts and learned to read Spanish documents from the 16th century that he discovered his focus.

Since then, Greig has traveled to Spain three times to conduct research with his professors and classmates as part of La Florida: The Interactive Digital Archive of the Americas. And he recently won the 2021 Leland Hawes Graduate Student Essay Prize in Florida Studies, which awards the best work among USF masters and doctoral students for contributions to the field of Florida history.

Greig is now using the prize money for a fourth research trip to Spain. https://www.stpetersburg.usf.edu/news/2021/morgan-greig-hawes-award-research-spain.aspx

09/27/2021

09/22/2021

Michael Francis, the Hough Family Endowed Chair of Florida Studies at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg campus, was named to the commission along with four others on September 3. Francis is known for his groundbreaking research and archival work on early Spanish Florida.

08/22/2021

We are delighted to announce that Florida Studies student Morgan Greig has been named the winner of the graduate section of the 2021 Leland Hawes Prize. Morgan's award-winning paper, titled "Finding Soto: A Social Examination of the Fernando de Soto Expedition of Conquest to Florida, 1538-1543" focuses on the men and women who participated in this sixteenth-century expedition. Below you will find a summary of the competition:

The competition is named after Tampa native Leland Hawes (1929-2013), who worked as a journalist and newspaper reporter for the Tampa Tribune and was the writer and editor of the “History and Heritage” section of the Sunday edition for over twenty years. After a long and successful fifty-two years career, he retired from the Tribune in 2004. Due to Hawes’s close association with the Tampa Bay History Center and the University of South Florida throughout his student and professional career, the two groups established the Leland Hawes Essay Prize, a juried essay competition for graduate and undergraduate students in the humanities. The competition is held yearly and a panel of scholars evaluate submissions based on originality, quality of research, and contributions to the field of Florida history, especially in relation to Tampa Bay. Finalists in the graduate section receive an award of $1,000 and will have their essays published in Tampa Bay History, a peer reviewed journal published jointly by the Tampa Bay History Center and USF Libraries.

Heartfelt congratuations, Morgan!

11/16/2020

The latest History@USFSP newsletter is live! Click below to check out the amazing things our Department is doing this semester (plus a primer on next semester's classes).

A NOTE FROM THE DEPARTMENT This is a semester of transition and transformation. As of July 1, the Department of History at USF St. Petersburg became a part of the consolidated USF system, combining its program and operations with our counterparts on the Tampa and Sarasota-Manatee campuses. Dr. Franc...

07/25/2020

H&P Professor of History Ray Arsenault wrote a tribute to and remembrance of the late John Lewis for the Tampa Bay Times. Read it below!

A USF historian and biographer of the Freedom Riders remembers the civil rights icon.

06/18/2020

ICYMI: Check out this great article highlighting H&P's own Dr. Thomas Smith and his research in Turkey!

Political Science Professor Explores “Urbicide” and Redevelopment of Kurdish Cities in Turkey