UGH: A Newsletter (Winter 2025),.
History Here – Free Events for Students
- History Club Weekly Meeting – Every Tuesday @ 7 PM!
The History Club has an exciting lineup of events you won’t want to miss. Follow @ucsbhistoryclub to stay updated on everything we have planned.
- Unboxed Season 3 Listening Party – The UCSB Undergraduate Journal of History
Date: March 11, 2025
Time: 6:00 PM
Location: HSSB 4080
The Undergraduate Journal of History is hosting a launch party for the latest season of our Podcast: Unboxed Season 3. Hear from some of the episode hosts, learn about their archive experiences, and listen to some sneak peeks of their favourite episodes. Join us and snack on multi-flavored popcorn!
Date: March 12, 2025
Time: 5:00 PM
Location: Girvetz 2320
What does the environmental history of the Ottoman Empire tell us about the modern Middle East? In this talk, Chris Gratien reflects on this question through an exploration of the “late Ottoman frontier,” using three commodities — cotton, sponges, and citrus — in modern-day Turkey, Greece, and Israel.
Date: March 28, 2025
Time: 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Location: Santa Barbara Mission Archive – Library
Going about the important task of preserving, learning, and conveying to others things that have not been written down, whether they are unwritten languages or the wisdom gained from the life experiences of those who have gone before us. Ernestine is the daughter of the last native speaker of the Barbareño Chumash language, James a student and teacher of the language, and Amy a scholar of Chumash history.
- Shelley Bookspan, The Historian as Detective, Public History Colloquium – UCSB Department of History
Date: April 4, 2025
Time: 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM
Location: HSSB 4041
Shelley Bookspan, a graduate of UCSB’s public history program, will talk about her extensive and varied career as a consulting historian, and offer students tips and guidance about careers in consulting. Please email shcase@ucsb.edu for suggested reading.
Please email history-undergrad-journal@ucsb.edu if you want your event highlighted in our newsletter!
The Latest – Research Spotlight
Our Fall 2024 issue saw the works of nine incredible writers! In “The Latest,” we celebrate them and all of their hard work. Today’s spotlight explores the work of Julia Grafstein!
Julia graduated from the University of Maryland in 2024 with a degree in History. Upon graduating, she started a clinical research position with the Undiagnosed Diseases Program at the National Institutes of Health. Julia’s work is titled: “Keepers of Womanhood: Missed Opportunities for Feminist and Transgender Coalition Building from the 1970s through the 1990s.”
Julia’s abstract is shared here:
“Alliances between members of the transgender community and the feminist community were slow to form, as the groups clashed over definitions of womanhood and experiences of gender oppression. Although trans people saw the value in forming alliances with feminists to fight gender oppression, feminists did not recognize the parallels between the groups. The very ideas that could have provided a base for coalition-building, including gender-based discrimination, access to employment, and gender violence, instead divided the groups. Sexual orientation further complicated coalition-building, as many cis lesbians questioned the gender identities of trans lesbians, while some trans lesbians believed cis lesbians were their natural allies. Through illuminating the shared struggles that feminists and trans people faced and the prejudices that inhibited coalition-building from the 1970s through the 1990s, this essay suggests the value and limits of transgender and feminist partnerships.”
Read Julia’s full published work here: Keepers of Womanhood: Missed Opportunities for Feminist and Transgender Coalition Building from the 1970s through the 1990s
Microhistories
Are you eager to get published but want to start small? Here’s your chance! The UCSB Undergraduate Journal of History proudly presents Microhistories, an exciting opportunity for students to showcase their research.
Submit a Public History Blog (1,000 words) or a Deep Archival Dive (500 words) and take your first step into academic publishing in a low-stakes, supportive environment. Gain valuable experience with the publication process while getting featured in our newsletter and on our website!
Don’t miss this opportunity to share your voice, hone your skills, and get your work out there!
Learn more and submit your Microhistory here!
Honors Course Crashing – Theses
UCSB is home to an incredible history department, and these students are hard at work on their History Honors Theses. Let’s find out what they are working on. Today, we will feature Moira Gullem, a senior in the History Department!
Moira’s honors thesis is focused on the financial misconduct of the female leaders of the 1920s Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and Women of the Ku Klux Klan (WKKK), specifically a reexamination of the KKK and WKKK as businesses with hatred as the product.
As Moira explains:
“These women utilized their Klan leadership as an avenue to build wealth through legitimate and illegitimate means; particularly achieving large monetary gains by economically exploiting the KKK’s ideology. The very fact that there were women leaders of the KKK and WKKK as a political organization is an incredibly notable facet of female political engagement; and their misconduct while in those roles, is an important feature of the ways women utilized their power and influence for self-enrichment. The women in the Klan are often presented as a feature of this wider phenomenon rather than a phenomenon itself. It is important to showcase this violent strand of female activism post-suffrage and how the Klan’s racist ideologies provided women an avenue for political power while ultimately reinforcing patriarchal gender roles. Further, the existence of these women demonstrated a form of early conservative feminism, as their leadership and fortunes are subversions of patriarchal institutions within the Klan and 1920s gender roles.”
Moira’s favorite thing about the History Department is how helpful everyone is: “I switched majors in my second year from Statistics and Data Science, and the History Department was so helpful with all of it. I talk to the advisor all the time and she is so gracious with all my questions. The history faculty is also similarly helpful, everyone always has so much advice and is so approachable.”
Advice Moira would give to a new History or HPPL major: “Utilize all the resources provided. There are a lot of different avenues and staff provided to help with anything. Go to office/drop-in hours as much as needed. Everyone is always super friendly and more than willing to help!”
One historical figure who Moira would like to meet would be Aristarchus of Samothrace, the Head Librarian of the Library of Alexandria: “The Library of Alexandria was one of the largest and most consequential libraries in history. It contained the original text of every scroll that passed through the city; that collection of knowledge is so extensive and so much of it is gone now. I want to know how much ancient knowledge was simply lost to history as a result of the library’s destruction. The head librarian is the perfect person to talk to about this thing I am so curious about.”
After graduating from UCSB, Moira plans to go to law school after a gap year. She hopes to specialize in immigration or labor law, and wishes to take the gap year to get more involved with either local labor unions or non-profits.
Thank you Moira for writing to us about your honors thesis! We are impressed by your hard work and passion. We wish you the best in your future endeavors!
Life After UGH – Hearing from Alumni
Ready for a blast to the past? Our alums are busy making their own histories: Today, we celebrate John Young! John graduated from UCSB with a BA in History in 2022. He is currently pursuing his JD at UCLA School of Law and is in his final semester. He will take the California Bar Exam this July. After the bar, John has a job lined up at Arnold & Porter LLP’s Los Angeles Office.
The most enjoyable paper that John worked on as an UGH Editor was entitled “Crime and Punishment: Child Pickpockets in Nineteenth-Century Great Britain” by Erica Bade. This paper examined the experiences of child convicts in 19th century Britain, focusing on pickpockets. As John remembers: “While many history students, including myself, find themselves fascinated with 18th and 19th century British history, few of us focus our efforts on groups like child criminals. I enjoyed learning about an aspect of 19th century British society that is often overlooked.”
John’s favorite memory at the UGH Editorial Board was the process of making podcasts about historical events that took place in Santa Barbara. He had a great time uncovering local, tangible history. The assignment made him feel more connected to the place he lived in. John loved getting to share his love for history through a creative medium that he had never before used.
Advice that John would give to anyone interested in joining the UGH Editorial Board: “Use this time as an opportunity to both learn about areas of history with which you are unfamiliar and hone your own writing skills. Reading and editing papers written by your peers is one of the best ways to improve your own writing skills. Try to take lessons away from each paper you read/edit, both in terms of content and writing style.”
Thank you John for writing to us about your experience as a history student and an UGH Editor! We congratulate you on your hard work and considerable achievements. We wish you the best for your future!
It’s Giving Me (editor vibes)
Hi everyone! I hope you enjoyed reading this week’s newsletter. I’m Sherry Huang, an editor at the Undergraduate Journal of History. I have been a member of the journal since fall of 2024, and am a fourth-year History major with a minor in English.
My “Roman Empire” lately is learning how to make a kite to fly at the beach. Winds are high with beautiful blue skies this March, so I wish to make a good kite that will fly well in my free time. I’m thinking of using lightweight paper, bamboo or wooden sticks, string, and glue.
Something that makes me happy is watching movies with my friends. Recently, my friend and I watched Wicked together. Other movies I have enjoyed while in Santa Barbara are: Dune: Part 2, Heretic, and Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. I also enjoy crafts & arts, learning new languages, and collecting cute things.
Tune in next quarter for the sixth edition of our newsletter, and thank you for reading this week’s events and spotlights! We hope you continue reading The UCSB Undergraduate Journal of History, and remember, we always welcome your new paper submissions!