"My Leopold Fellowship was one of the best—if not the very best—academic experiences I've had at Northwestern."

      "I can't say enough wonderful things about my time as a Leopold Fellow. Being a Leopold Fellow helped me to understand the joys (and frustrations!) of actual research. It gave me a better understanding of what

it means to be a 'historian.' "

                                                                                           (comments by two of the first Leopold Fellows)

 

The Center for Historical Studies at NU has developed an undergraduate program  that honors the teaching and scholarship of Professor Richard Leopold, a long-time member of Northwestern University's Department of History.

 

The LEOPOLD FELLOWSHIP program provides a small group of able Northwestern undergraduate students     with an opportunity to engage in genuine historical research. The fellowship entails an hourly wage and possible travel expenses, but no academic credit. Leopold Fellows work on current faculty research projects, learning how to interpret complex archival and documentary materials. Exploring a topic of current research under the guidance of a regular  member of the Department of History, the Leopold Fellows learn how scholars develop arguments out of diverse research materials. This program is possible in part thanks to the generous contributions of donors made in honor of  the late Professor Richard W. Leopold of the NU History Department.

Each March History faculty projects are publicized and applications for Leopold Fellowships solicited for the next academic year. NU undergraduates from any school and major can apply for up to two faculty projects. Relevant faculty members select the student they wish to work with on a given project. For more details, please see last year's Call for Applications (below).

 

Fellows explaining their research at the Fall Quarter Leopold Fellows' lunch.

2013-2-14 LEOPOLD FELLOWS

for application details and faculty research project descriptions, click here

Applications for the Leopold Fellowships (except for the Laura Hein project) are in and fellowships will be announced by the end of May.

2013-2014 History faculty projects:

Michael J. ALLEN— Tug of War: Confronting the Imperial Presidency, 1968-1992

Henry BINFORD—Small Businesses in Poor Urban Communities

Peter CARROLL—Debating the Death Penalty in Republican China

Deborah COHEN—John Bull’s Soft Touch

Benjamin FROMMER— The Ghetto without Walls: The Holocaust in Bohemia and Moravia

Laura HEIN—Editorial work on online Asia-Pacific Journal

Robert LERNER—The Political Engagements and Commitments of a German Refugee Scholar

Kate MASUR—Slavery, abolition, and law enforcement in the era of the U.S. Civil War

Sarah MAZA—Thinking About History

Michael SHERRY—Go Directly to Jail: The Punitive Turn in American Life 

Helen TILLEY—“The Wisdom of the Peoples”: African Decolonization, Global Governance, and Cold War Constructions of Traditional Medicine.

 

Archival librarian Janet Olson talks to current Leopold Fellows about archival research, Oct. 11, 2012 in Deering Library.

LEOPOLD FELLOWS—2012-2013

Brian EARL (WCAS junior) working with Prof. Laura HEIN—Online editing: Asia-Pacific Journal (all year) 

Matthew HONEGGER (WCAS and Bienen School of Music junior) working with Prof. Carl SMITH—Popular Music and the American City (winter/spring 2013) 

Albert HONG (WCAS junior) working with Prof. Deborah COHEN—Gentlemanly Capital in the Argentine (all year) 

Andrew JARRELL (WCAS senior) working with Prof. Kate MASUR—Runaway Slaves and the Abolition of Slavery during the Civil War (summer 2012, winter/spring 2013) 

Andrew JONES (WCAS senior) working with Prof. Michael J. ALLEN—National Security Politics in the Long 1970s (Fall 2012, winter 2013) 

Eliza MONTGOMERY (WCAS senior) working with prof. Henry BINFORD—Small Businesses in Poor Urban Communities (all year) 

Teresa SPINELLI  (WCAS  and Bienen School of Music sophomore) working with Prof. Robert LERNER—Biography of Eminent Historian Ernst Kantorowicz (winter and spring 2013) 

Aleksandr SVERDLIK (WCAS senior) working with Prof. Michael SHERRY—Go Directly to Jail: The Punitive Turn in American Life (summer and Fall 2012, winter 2013) 

Chloe WOODHOUSE (WCAS junior) working with Prof. Ken ALDER—A History of Things (all year)

2012-2013 LEOPOLD FELLOWSHIPS--for the Call for Applications and faculty projects, click here--

LF Call for Applications

2011-2012 Leopold Fellows and faculty sponsors met at the

Fall Quarter 2011 lunch in the Leopold Room of Harris Hall on Dec. 2 to hear Emily Davidson, Ellie Graham and Logan Koepke present their research.

2011-2012 LEOPOLD FELLOWS

and their faculty research projects (13)

Hayley ALTABEF (WCAS senior) working with Prof. Ken ALDER—A History of American Paternity Disputes (all year)

            Emily DAVIDSON (WCAS junior) working with Prof. Yohanan PETROVSKY-SHTERN—Jews in the early Modern World: a source book (Fall 2011)

Brian EARL (WCAS sophomore) working with Prof. Laura HEIN—Online editing: Asia-Pacific Journal (winter and spring 2012)

Nathan ENFIELD (WCAS senior) working with Prof. Michael ALLEN—American Antiwar Activism and Reform in the Long 1970s (all year)

Christopher GARCIA (Medill senior) working with Prof. Deborah COHEN—Talking It Out: Confession and Permissiveness in Britain, 1950-1980 (summer/Fall 2011, Winter 2012)

(Jennifer) Ellie GRAHAM (WCAS junior) working with Prof. Rajeev KINRA—European literary culture and the Indo-Persian World, 16th to 18th C. (all year)

Stefanie GRONER (Medill junior) working with Prof. Laura HEIN—Online editing: Asia-Pacific Journal (winter and spring 2012)

Janna HERMAN (WCAS senior) working with Prof. Scott SOWERBY—Cosmopolitanism and the Early British Empire (all year)

Claire HUNT (SESP senior) working with Prof. Henry BINFORD—Small Businesses in Poor Urban Communities (all year)

Anthony IGLESIAS (WCAS junior) working with Prof. Kate MASUR—African American Federal Employees in Post-Emancipation America (all year)

Andrew JARELL (WCAS junior) working with Prof. T.H. BREEN—George Washington and the Creation of American Nationalism (all year)

(John) Logan KOEPKE (WCAS junior) working with Prof. Michael SHERRY—Go Directly to Jail: The Punitive Turn in American Life (all year)

Meredith LANE (WCAS senior) working with Prof. Regina GRAFE—A Stakeholder Empire: the political economy of Spanish rule in 18th century America and beyond (all year)

Aaron LEVINE  (WCAS sophomore) working with Prof. Peter HAYES—Using Holocaust Testimonies in Research (Fall 2011 and winter 2012)

              Elan SIEDBAND (WCAS senior) working with Prof. Brodwyn FISCHER—Race and Social Inequality During Brazil’s            

              Great Migration (Fall 2011)

              Laura SIMPSON (WCAS senior) working with Prof. Robert LERNER—The Testimony of Pedro Pecha at a Hearing of 1380

             on the Origins of the Great Schism of the West (Fall 2011)

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Graduating Leopold Fellows (History majors)

 Spring 2011

 LEOPOLD FELLOWS 2010-2011

 1. Sarah COLLINS (Medill senior) working with Prof. Carl Smith—City Water, City Life (summer and Fall 2010)

 2. Hollis DVORKIN  (WCAS senior) working with Prof. Robert Lerner—Edition and Study of a Fourteenth-Century Treatise(whole year)

3. Britta HANSON (WCAS junior) working with Prof. Edward Muir—The Italian Renaissance: The Virtues of Doubt/Local Knowledge— (whole year).

4. Alexa C. HERZOG  (SESP sophomore) working for Prof. Susan Pearson—Registering Birth: Populations and Personhood in the United States of America (summer 2010, Winter and Spring 2011). 

5. Nicole HONG (Medill junior) working with Prof. Peter Carroll—Chinese Modernity    (winter and spring 2011.)

6. Joshua LEVIN (WCAS junior) working with Prof. Kate Masur—African American Federal Employees in Post-Emancipation America—(winter and spring 2011).

7. Lee MASON (WCAS senior) working with Prof. Michael SHERRY—Go Directly to Jail: The Punitive Turn in American Life (whole year).

8. Nicholas RUGE (WCAS junior) working with Prof. T.H. Breen—George Washington and the Creation of American Nationalism (whole year).

9. Sarah SCHUTT (WCAS sophomore) working with Prof. Michael Allen—Reining in Presidential Power (whole year)

10. Julia SMITH (WCAS senior) working with Prof. Henry C. Binford—Small Business in Poor Urban Communities (Fall 2010 and Winter 2011)

11. Rafael VIZCAINO (WCAS sophomore) working with Prof. Gerry Cadava—Building Modern Borders: A Physical, Spatial, and Cultural History of the U.S.-Mexico Border Since World War II (whole year).

 

 

LEOPOLD FELLOWS—for 2009-2010 we received a total of 40 applications.

For details and descriptions of FACULTY PROJECTS FOR 2009-2010 LEOPOLD FELLOWS--click here.

1. Stephanie ASPLUNDH (sophomore) is researching all academic year (Fall 2009, Winter and Spring 2010) with Professor T.H.BREEN how a Dutch  company attempted to corner the American market for maple syrup during the 1790's;

2. Heidi Beth DESSECKER (senior) is exploring all academic year with Professor Henry BINFORD small businesses in poor urban communities in Chicago and Cincinnati (from 1860 onwards);

3. Esther DIVOVICH (junior) worked summer/Fall 2009 with Professor Yohanan PETROVSKY-SHTERN on a Ukrainian Jewish poet’s work in Soviet newspapers of the 1930s and 40s;

4. Richard H. MURPHY (senior) is working all academic year with Professor Michael SHERRY on a book project on prisons and the punitive turn in American life from the 1970s onwards;

5. Parvathi SANTOSH-KUMAR (senior) is researching all academic year with Professor Nancy MacLEAN Southern segregationists and school vouchers;

6. Devin L. SIZER (sophomore) is working all academic year with Professor Kate MASUR on civil rights in 19th-C. Washington, D.C.;

7. Craig SPENCER (senior) is examining Fall 2009/winter 2010 with Professor Michael ALLEN war orphan adoption;

8. Hana SUCKSTORFF (junior) is preparing (all academic year with Professor Robert LERNER) a critical and annotated edition of a treatise on the Great Schism of the West;

9. Sisi TANG (junior) is working in the Fall and Winter quarters with Professor Peter CARROLL on Chinese modernity.

First LEOPOLD FELLOWS of the CHS--2008-2009

The first Leopold Fellows started work in 2008-2009. Due to the extraordinary response (32 applications for 10 research projects) and thanks to the generosity of Leopold donors, the History Department, and the Office of the Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education, in this inaugural year we were able to support 10 Leopold Fellows. The first ever group of Leopold Fellows and their mentors met on June 2 at a celebratory lunch in the Allen Center. The Fellows attended an archival research workshop conducted by librarian Janet Olson from the University Archives on Oct. 15. At a December 3 lunch during Reading Week three Leopold Fellows spoke about their Fall projects to the whole group of Fellows and mentors.

CHS Director Timothy Breen presents the Leopold Fellows with copies of the biography, Straddling Two Worlds: The Jewish-American Journey of Professor  Richard W. Leopold  by NU alumnus and lecturer Steven J. Harper, at the end

of the Fall quarter (December 3, 2008) lunch meeting attended by the Leopold Fellows, their faculty mentors, Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education, Ronald Braeutigam, his assistant Christopher Hayden, and NU archival librarian Janet Olson.

 

    Laura Colee, the first alumna of the Leopold Fellowship program, reports on her 

    research findings at the Fall 2008 quarter meeting. She had been working through the

    summer and Fall on 17-century British millenarian pamphlets relating to the Jewish

    messianic movement of Sabbatai Sevi in Ottoman Turkey.

    Kate Stephensen and Jack Neubauer also presented their research to critical acclaim

   of their peers and faculty sponsors.

 

 

At the Winter 2009 quarter lunch meeting of the Leopold Fellows Professor Josef Barton spoke about his work with

Marcela Castillo, who was away doing archival research for him in California, while our student presenters were

Jasmine Nazek and Cristina Burack, both of whom were working on challenging materials in foreign languages

(Italian and German respectively).

At the Spring 2009 quarter lunch Asst. Director Elzbieta Foeller-Pituch and and archival librarian Janet Olson listen with interest to Leopold Fellows talking about their research.

2008-2009 LEOPOLD FELLOWS and FACULTY projects
Note: More detailed descriptions of the projects and the research of the Leopold Fellow can be found HERE.

1. Cristina BURACK (senior) working winter/spring 2009 with Professor Benjamin Frommer on Czechs and Czechoslovakia in the German narrative of suffering before and after World War II;

2. Marcela CASTILLO (senior) working winter/spring 2009 with Professor Josef Barton on Mexican rural women and the reconstruction of community in Northern Mexico and the Southwestern U.S. between 1880 and 1930;

3. Laura COLEE (senior) working summer/Fall 2008 with Professor Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern on the reaction of the western world to the rise of the Jewish messianic movement called Sabbateanism;

4. Stephanie DeNOTTO (junior) working winter/spring 2009 with Professor Robert Lerner on an edition of letters written by and to the noted medieval historian Ernst Kantorowicz (1895-1963);

5. Margaret DONNELLY (junior) working winter/spring 2009 with Professor T.H. Breen (originally Prof. Sarah Pearsall) on colonial America at the onset of the Revolution;

6. Julia HOTOPP (senior) working Fall 2008/winter 2009) with Professor Henry Binford on small businesses in poor urban communities in Chicago and Cincinnati (from 1860 onwards);

7. Huiju JEON (sophomore) working all three quarters of 2008-2009) with Professor Ji-Yeon Yuh on South Korean attitudes toward overseas ethnic Koreans, particularly Korean Americans, resident Koreans in Japan, and ethnic Koreans in China;

8. Jasmine NAZEK (junior) working all three quarters of 2008-2009 with Professor Edward Muir on skepticism in early modern Venice on the basis of the Academy of the Unknowns, a debating society whose members published hundreds of books and pamphlets over a thirty year period in the early 17th C.;

9. Jack NEUBAUER (junior) working all three quarters with Professor Michael Sherry on a book project on prisons and the punitive turn in American life from the 1970s onwards;

10. Kate STEPHENSEN (sophomore) working Fall 2008/winter 2009 with Professor T.H. Breen on colonial unrest and vigilante groups in towns of coastal Maine in the run-up to the American Revolution.

Janet Olson tells the Leopold Fellows about archival research and three Leopold Fellows model their new T-shirts

reading "I found it in the Northwestern University Archives" (Oct. 15, 2008)