News & Events

Learn what's new with our students, faculty, upcoming events and our department's impact on the community.

Zombek Named Chief Historian at Emerging Civil War

Angie Zombek, associate professor of history, was named Chief Historian at Emerging Civil War (ECW). ECW, a 501(c)3 organization, is in its 15th year and serves as "a public-history oriented platform for sharing original scholarship related to the American Civil War", particularly spotlighting the next generation of Civil War historians. In 2025, the web platform reached the milestone of attracting one million views in a year. Zombek, as Chief Historian, will continue to share her expertise with the public and play a key role mentoring the next generation of Civil War historians.

Second Annual Graduate Fellowship Awarded for Jewish History Research

Second year History M.A. student Alec Ott will continue studying history of the Holocaust in Slovakia as the second annual recipient of the Block Graduate Fellowship in Jewish History. Awarded annually with a renewable $10,000 stipend, the Block Fellowship supports graduate students in pursuing research and writing a master’s thesis on a topic related to Jewish history and culture. The fellowship was made possible through the generosity of donors from the Wilmington Jewish community, who also endowed the distinguished professorship in Jewish History, currently held by Jarrod Tanny.

image of building for history department

Houpt Receives UNCW Teaching Award

David Houpt was named as recipient of 2026 Chancellor's Teaching Excellence Award. Congratulations!

Professor Emerita Carole Fink Invited to Marc Block Commemoration in Paris

Carole Fink, professor emerita was invited by President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte Macron, to attend the Pantheon ceremony honoring Marc Bloch, who was executed by the Nazis in 1944. Dr Fink wrote the first biography of the French historian, soldier, and patriot Marc Bloch: A Life in History, which has now been translated into six languages (including, most recently, into Chinese). She was also interviewed by the New York Times for an article on the subject.

Read the New York Times news article

Sherman Emerging Scholar Lecture Series

This annual lecture series was established to honor two lifelong learners and friends of the department, Virginia and Derrick Sherman. It is one of the History Department's premier events each year.

Learn More About the Sherman Lecture

Other News

On June 30, Dr. Angie Zombek appeared on Fox 13 Tampa Bay news in reporter Evan Axelbank's story covering Florida Governor Ron DeSantis's unveiling of a statue honoring Abraham Lincoln in honor of America's 250th birthday. The video segment and story can be found here. Zombek also appeared on Emerging Civil War News discussing 14th Amendment's history in light of the recent Supreme Court ruling on birthright citizenship that was handed down on June 30.

Dr. Jarrod Tanny's co-edited volume with Jennifer Caplan and Avionoam Patt, Wit Happens: Global Jewish Humor, was published on February 17, 2026 with Wayne State U Press. Most of the essays are based on presentations that were given at the 2020 Jewish History Conference held at UNCW

Gradute Student Skylar Holland was awarded a Strong Fellowship. which allows her to spend June 2026 at the Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, NY. She will be doing research for her M.A. thesis, "Playing with Pleasant Company: Domesticity in the American Girl Doll Collection."

Dr. Kim Sherman was invited by the African Studies Center at UNC-Chapel Hill to speak on slavery and the save trade in early North Carolina for their annual K-12 teacher's retreat.

Dr. Michael Seidman gave a radio interview on Spanish National Radio and Television to Siliva Tarragona's De nit (in the Night) on his new book, "Esclavos en la Europa del siglo XX, 1914-1945."

Dr. Yixin Chen is the author of When Food Became Scarce: How Chinese Peasants Survived the Great Leap Forward Famine, which was the subject of a H-Environment Roundtable.

Michael Seidman, professor of history, has announced publication of his new book, "Esclavos en la Europa del siglo XX, 1914-1945." It offers a reinterpretation of the period of the world wars by examining the reinvention of labor compulsion on the European continent wherein nationalists, communists and fascists revived the militarism, torture, and mass murder that characterized previous slave societies in Africa, the Islamic world, and the Americas. Seidman spoke about his book on Spanish National Radio and Television, sitting for an interview in Spanish and Catalan.

The cover of Michael Seidman's book "Esclavos en la Europa del siglo XX (1914-1945)" depicting a black-and-white photograph of a barbed wire fence

On Oct. 17, Dr. David La Vere received the 2025 Edmonds-Gavins Award by the Historical Society of North Carolina for the Best Article in the North Carolina Historical Review for 2024 for the article “Making War on the Deer: Deer Hunting and Deerskins in Colonial North Carolina.” He received a nice certificate and a small cash prize.

Student Sarah Creel's essay on "The Williams Family of Historic Wilmington" was published in the Lower Cape Fear Historical Society Bulletin in June 2025. Sarah's research on this began when she was an intern at the Latimer House.

On October 23, 2025, Dr. Yixin Chen gave a talk at UC Berkeley on "Famine and Rebellion: the Counterrevolutionary Case of the Chinese People's Life-Saving Army in the Western Stream Villages, 1919-1960." He previously gave a talk on this topic at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University in March 2025.

Dr. Jarrod Tanny recently self-published a new book on Amazon: Tales of a Yid in Dixieland: Bible Jokes, Southern Folks, and the Woke Who Shame the Jews.

Recent MA Graduate, Matthew Parker, has accepted an adjunct professorship at Methodist University.

Recent MA Graduate, Chandler Hicks, has accepted a position as a Social Studies Teacher at RJ Reynolds High School in Winston, NC.

Dr. Michael Seidman authored the chapter, “The Spanish Civil War,” in Ian Ona Johnson and Robert Clemm's edition of A Violent Peace: A Global Military History of the Interwar Period, (University of Kansas Press, 2025), pp. 260-285. Contributors to the book focused on wars erupting on four continents during the first half of the twentieth century,

CHSSA Related News

Professor Emeritus Invited to National Ceremony Honoring Biography Subject READ MORE

Makia Martin '07 READ MORE

Revisiting the Revolution: America Founded on Ideals READ MORE