SDSU Department of History

SDSU Department of History The official page for the Department of History at San Diego State University.

Welcome to the page of Department of History at San Diego State University, a virtual forum to connect with our community of scholars, students, and friends.

Congratulations to our graduating historians! This month, students from Summer 2025, Fall 2025 and Spring 2026 graduated...
05/29/2026

Congratulations to our graduating historians! This month, students from Summer 2025, Fall 2025 and Spring 2026 graduated from the Department of History. This occasion marked a momentous achievement and the start to new chapters for all of our graduating students.

The department of history hosted a graduation celebration on campus where our graduates were commended for their hard work and recognized for their academic excellence.

We said goodbye to many of our esteemed graduate students who are now going into the world as trained historians!

And last but not least, we announced the changing of the guard. Professor Annika Frieberg was thanked for her four years as history department graduate advisor and Professor Walter Penrose Jr. was announced as taking up the mantle. Additionally, our undergraduate advisor Christina Weinert was thanked as well for her many years of excellent service as our undergraduate advisor for the department.

Hello SDSU historians! Come join us in initiating our newest members of Phi Alpha Theta, the National History Honor Soci...
04/30/2026

Hello SDSU historians! Come join us in initiating our newest members of Phi Alpha Theta, the National History Honor Society. We will be meeting this Friday, May 1st, at 6:00 pm. Snacks and beverages will be provided, and all students are welcome, regardless of your status as a member or not.

Phi Alpha Theta, the History Honors Society, invites all students interested in history to its Spring Initiation and Mix...
04/30/2026

Phi Alpha Theta, the History Honors Society, invites all students interested in history to its Spring Initiation and Mixer on Friday May 1 at 6:00 PM on the AL 6th floor balcony. Please contact Professor Walter Penrose at [email protected] with any questions about Phi Alpha Theta.

Hey history grads, come join us in celebrating you and your fellow graduating classmates! May 15th, just after commencem...
04/28/2026

Hey history grads, come join us in celebrating you and your fellow graduating classmates! May 15th, just after commencement, head over to Scripps Cottage (next to the Turtle Pond) for refreshments, recognition of outstanding graduates, and a last farewell to your favorite faculty members. Bring your family and friends along to take pictures and celebrate everything you have achieved!

The Department of Sociology, the Department of History, the Center for Public and Oral History at San Diego State Univer...
04/22/2026

The Department of Sociology, the Department of History, the Center for Public and Oral History at San Diego State University, Del Mar Community Connections, and the Del Mar Historical Society are pleased to announce the 2026 Gordon Clanton Award in Oral History. The application deadline is Wednesday, May 6, 2026, and all Sociology and History majors are encouraged to apply.

Gordon Clanton, longtime professor of sociology at SDSU, was a prominent resident of Del Mar who passed away July 13, 2021. Professor Clanton had long involvement with the City of Del Mar and devoted much of his time to Del Mar Community Connections (DMCC), where he served on the Board of Directors for many years. DMCC is honoring Gordon Clanton and his legacy by establishing this award and collaborating with SDSU’s Center for Public and Oral History (CPOH) on awarding it annually for four consecutive years.

The Gordon Clanton Award offers a monetary award of $1,000, each year to a history or sociology major at San Diego State University. The winning student will receive training in oral history interviewing from the staff of CPOH at SDSU as well as the Del Mar Historical Society (DMHS) and will conduct one oral history interview of up to four hours total with a senior resident of Del Mar, as identified by the DMCC and DMHS. In collaboration with a representative from DMHS, each awardee will:
● Learn the purpose of the Gordon Clanton Award project
● Learn if there are specific requests related to the individual interview
● Prepare a project design statement
● Conduct one oral history interview of up to four hours

Application Deadline | Wednesday, May 6, 2026

To apply, please send a resume and a one-page cover letter describing your interest in public and oral history or community history and why you feel you are a good candidate for working with oral history and with seniors in the Del Mar community.

Please send materials to Prof. David Cline, Director, SDSU Center for Public and Oral History, at [email protected]. Please cc applications to [email protected].

Earlier this month, several SDSU History graduate students attended a lecture hosted by the Midway Institute for Teacher...
04/01/2026

Earlier this month, several SDSU History graduate students attended a lecture hosted by the Midway Institute for Teachers. "Teaching Vietnam Through Music" by Dr. Kathryn Statler taught both current and future history teachers how the medium of music can be used to encourage engagement with historical topics like the Vietnam War. Participants analyzed song lyrics, shared playlists, and discussed how they could best implement music in the classroom to reach students.

We are thankful for the excellent opportunity and look forward to seeing more of our graduate students at future events through the MIT!

Join us for the 42nd Appleby Memorial Lecture with guest lecturer, Dr. Denise McCoskey, Professor of French, Italian, an...
04/01/2026

Join us for the 42nd Appleby Memorial Lecture with guest lecturer, Dr. Denise McCoskey, Professor of French, Italian, and Classical Studies at Miami University, Ohio. Her lecture, "‘War and the Breed’: The Fall of Rome and American Eugenics," will discuss how American eugenics utilized the fall of the Roman Empire to promote its pseudoscientific methods in the early 20th century. This fascinating talk will be followed by snacks and drinks, so please spread the word and bring your friends!

Date: April 17th, 2026
Time: 3:30 pm - 5:00 pm
Location: San Diego State University, Arts and Letters 101

Congratulations to all of our amazing history students who presented at the SDSU Student Symposium 2026 (S3)! We had two...
04/01/2026

Congratulations to all of our amazing history students who presented at the SDSU Student Symposium 2026 (S3)! We had two undergraduates, Isabella Torcat and Andrew Wickman who presented their valuable contributions to the history of the early American Republic. Additionally, our SIX graduate students gave fantastic presentations on their research spanning from ancient Rome to modern museum curation.

Three of our students brought home awards for their work!

Isabella Torcat won the SDSU Undergraduate RSCA Program (SURP) Award for her research, “The Forgotten First Amendment: The Apportionment Amendment (1789-1790).”

Leeanne Jones’ “The Cost of Returning Home: The Act of Repatriation and its Economic Impact on the Museum Industry” was the winner of the Charles Wei-hsun Fu Foundation Philosophy Award.

Gabriel Holiday’s “Building a City from the Kitchen, Up: Culinary Labor and Racial Power from the Plantation to Bourbon Street, New Orleans” earned him the President's Award.

We are so proud of our history students and are eager to support Gabriel Holiday when he takes his presentation to the next level in the California State University Student Research Competition!

Attention all middle school and high school teachers! We are proud to announce the Jack Miller Center’s Civics Foundatio...
04/01/2026

Attention all middle school and high school teachers! We are proud to announce the Jack Miller Center’s Civics Foundations Graduate Consortium summer course, “Founding Ideas: From the Declaration of Independence to the California Constitution.”

This course will explore the evolving political principles that shaped governance in North America from the late eighteenth century through California’s admission to the Union in 1850. The class will trace ideas like natural rights, popular sovereignty, federalism, and constitutionalism through the U.S. Constitution, their adaptation in the Mexican Constitution of 1824, and their eventual expression in the California Constitution of 1849, a hybrid document reflecting American, Mexican, and local influences.

This is a FREE COURSE for all middle school and high school teachers to apply to! It will be taught by SDSU’s own Prof. Edward Blum entirely online from July 7th to August 15th, 2026. The deadline to apply is May 1st, 2026, so do not miss out. The link is in our account bio which will explain the structure and objectives of the course and has a link for registration at the bottom. We hope to see you this summer!

Congratulations to MA Alumni History alum Rusti Rasing (BA 2019, MA 2024) for publishing “Enmity to Affinity and Beyond:...
01/13/2026

Congratulations to MA Alumni History alum Rusti Rasing (BA 2019, MA 2024) for publishing “Enmity to Affinity and Beyond: Filipino Eternal Indebtedness” in the Filipino American National Historical Society Journal!

Rusti’s paper is a revised version of the first chapter of his master’s thesis (Prof. David Cline, Advisor), aimed at explaining Filipino’s actions through internal motivations informed by Filipino cultural traditions in the early 20th century.

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