The following History students have been awarded History Department
Honors Scholarship for 2009:

Javier Samper Vendrell has received the Alan Spitzer Scholarship. He is writing a senior thesis on "Gay and Lesbian Popular Periodicals during the Weimar Republic, supervised by Professor Elizabeth Heineman.

The fellowship is named in honor of University of Iowa History Professor Emeritus Alan Spitzer. Alan Spitzer had a lifetime concern with the quality of undergraduate education, and played a key role in sustaining the History honors program. The Alan Spitzer Fellowship is funded by Allan J. Kuethe, Professor of History at Texas Tech University. Professor Kuethe was an undergraduate at the University of Iowa in the early 60s. His honors seminar with Alan Spitzer was the key intellectual experience that drew him to graduate school. Allan made us think, he says, and he wanted to contribute to an award that will make current undergraduates think.

Javier Samper Vendrell has also received a Stanley Foundation Scholarship, and a Research Assistantship from the Iowa Center for Research by Undergraduates for 2009-2010 to assist Professor Heineman with her forthcoming book on the expansion of sexual consumer culture in late twentieth century Western Europe and North America.

Alex Fischels has received the William Eugene Wolters Scholarship for research expenses related to his senior thesis on "Jamaican popular music and its relationship to the political evolution that followed Jamaica’s formal independence in 1962", supervised by Professor Jeffrey Cox.

He has also been selected to receive the Kay Keeshan Hamod Scholarship in History from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Kay Keeshan Hamod received her Ph.D. from The University of Iowa in 1976 while studying modern European intellectual history. Dr. Hamod received her bachelor’s degree in English Literature from Northwestern University and earned a Master’s degree in Liberal Studies from Valparaiso University. Prior to completing her Ph.D., Dr. Hamod conducted research at Oxford University as a Mary Anderson Fellow. Dr. Hamod went on to teach at The University of Iowa, Bowling Green University, and Rutgers University. Her family established this scholarship fund in her memory to honor the many contributions she made to undergraduate education in her lifetime.

Nathan Schlitter has received Flora Bella Houston Memorial Scholarship. He plans to use the scholarship for research expenses related to his senior thesis on "The American Friends Service Committee and the American Civil Liberties Union and their opposition to Japanese American Internment", supervised by Professor Stephen Vlastos.

Brigid Freymuller has been offered the William L. M. and William E. Burke Scholarship. She plans to use the scholarship to support research for her senior thesis on "The Secular Games, 17 BC and the Golden Age of Augustus", supervised by Professor Rosemary Moore.

Kayla Olson has been awarded an Iowa Center for Research by Undergraduates Research Assistantship for 2009-2010 to assist Professor Kathleen Kamerick with her research on legal prosecutions for magic in late Medieval England.

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The following History Undergraduate Students awarded Helen K. Fairall Scholarships:

Alex Fischels of Waterloo hopes to attend graduate school in history after completing his senior thesis on Jamaican popular music and the development of Jamaican popular identity. His thesis is based on research in the Jamaican National Historical Archives, focusing on the history of radio broadcasting and government policy toward music broadcasting during the emergence of Reggae music. A musician as well as a music lover, he is interested in the political implications of popular music, and the ways in which the history of music might shed light on the relationship between institutions of power on the one hand and popular political consciousness on the other. His thesis supervisor is Professor Jeffrey Cox.

Michael Hart of Bettendorf has a special interest is East Asia, and is writing a senior thesis on "Anti-Japanese Sentiment in the American Popular Media, 1975-1995". Using a variety of media sources--movies, novels, cartoons, comic books--he plans to analyze the rise and fall of hostile stereotypes of the Japanese during the period when the American consumer market was being flooded with Japanese goods. His thesis supervisor is Professor Stephen Vlastos.