Young Historians Conference 2023 Winners: Amelia Nason, Poppy Baxter Game, Andy Manne
The 2024 Young Historians Conference Schedule (PDF)
The Young Historians Conference will be held on the 3rd Fl of the Smith Memorial Student Union at Portland State University.
9:00 – 9:20 INTRODUCTION: John S. Ott, Chair and Professor of History
WELCOME: President Ann E. Cudd, PhD
9:20 – 10:30 FIRST SESSIONS: Choose from Three
SMSU 338: Violent Intolerance and Modern Memory
Moderator: Professor Patricia Schechter
Julian Balsley (Grant) Identity in Question: Middle Eastern Americans in Dearborn, Michigan
Ada Camp (St. Mary’s) Fragments of a Dream: Armenia and the Shadow of Genocide
Elliot Lindekugel (Grant) Confederate Flight to Brazil: A Uniquely Transnational Perspective of Confederate Memory
SMSU 328-29: Keeping Up Appearances
Moderator: Professor Catherine McNeur
Jordan Donegan (St. Mary’s) The Double Standard of Victorian Beauty: Was Too Much Makeup Too Little, Or Was Too Little Makeup Too much?
Kai Williams (St. Mary’s) The Freedom and Danger of Crinoline
Adrienne Nguyen (St. Mary’s) Saucer Eyes and Square Foreheads: Examining the Pseudoscience Phrenology and Its Popularity in 19th Century Europe
SMSU 327: Hidden Histories during WWII
Moderator: Professor Richard Beyler
Jenna McComas (St. Mary’s) The Cambridge Five Spy Ring: The Notorious Bane of the British Government
Lia Hansen (St. Mary’s) A Matter of Ultra Importance: How Ultra’s Decryption of Enigma Impacted the Outcome of World War II
Lea Yonago (Grant) A History of The Bracero Program as an Agent of Transnational Modernity in the 20th Century
10:30 – 10:40 BREAK
10:40 – 11:50 SECOND SESSIONS: Choose from Three
SMSU 338: Preserving the Past through Contemporary Beliefs
Moderator: Professor John Ott
Maia Lippay (St. Mary’s) Marshlands and Monasteries: The Impact of Weapon Deposition on Medieval British Christianity
Audrey Kelley-Henroid (Grant) Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations and Its Interpretation with Christian Contemporary Thought
Diego Hernandez (Grant) The Popol Vuh: Ancient Poems in a Contemporary World
SMSU 328-29: Money Makes the World Go Around
Moderator: Professor Marc Rodriguez
Katelyn Crowell (Grant) Ceremonial Sexual Sacrifice to Commercial Prostitution: The History of Prostitution and the Social, Economic, and Religious Progress That Revolved Around the Profession
Caden Williams (Grant) From Dice to Cards: Unveiling the Evolution of Gambling Through the Ages
Adelle Baptiste (St. Mary’s) Mosley’s Miscalculations: A Corrupt Sporting President’s Last Years of Chaos Within the World’s Wealthiest Motorsport
SMSU 327: Imagining the Ideal
Moderator: Professor Thomas Luckett
Finley Irwin (Grant) Thomas More's Utopia: Historical Value and Modern Influence
Nyilah Ali Moyo (St. Mary’s) A Melting Pot of Culture: The Impact of Toledo’s Interreligious Community on Mudéjar Architecture
Anna Roberts (Grant) The Influence of Plato’s Symposium: Love and Beauty Throughout Media & Culture
11:50 – 12:30 LUNCH in SMSU 355 (Ballroom)
12:30 – 1:45 THIRD SESSIONS: Choose from Four
SMSU 338: Nationalism through the Arts
Moderator: Dr Brenda Frink
Ellia Sheller (St. Mary’s) Inventing The Louvre - Napoleon’s Art Plunder as A Symbol of French Nationalism and Cultural Superiority
Colette Reindl (St. Mary’s) The Brothers Grimm: Preserving Nationalism and the German Cultural Identity in German Folk Tales
Eliana Scheele (St. Mary’s) One Ring to Rule Them All: Connecting Johann Herder’s Romantic Nationalism & Richard Wagner’s “The Ring”
Ricky Kamenetz (Grant) Indoctrination & Education: Plato’s Republic and the Power of Censorship
SMSU 328-29: Exploring Global Cultural Identities
Moderator: Professor Bright Alozie
Amelia Vena (Grant) Immigrant Identity Formation, a Transnational Approach: Italian Americans in New York City, 1880-1930
Ramona Sapru Henderson (St. Mary’s) Political Movement Through Cultural Identity: Lessons from the Présence Africaine
Kainat Kaur Deo (St. Mary’s) Manifestation Through Martyrdom: How the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre Invigorated Indian Resistance to Colonial Oppression
SMSU 327: Identity through Conflict
Moderator: Professor Jennifer Kerns
Maya Geer (St. Mary’s) The Unheard Voices of Women in Convents: A Different Perspective on the Thirty Years War
Willa Fahrbach (St. Mary’s) Faithful Coverage: The Irish Independent’s Catholic Transformation of the Spanish Civil War
Jake McCauley (Grant) Priscus at the Court of Attila: Unveiling Hunnic Dynamics
SMSU 333: Cross Cultural Narratives
Moderator: Professor David Horowitz
Naomi Hemstreet (Grant) Jewish Immigrants in Argentina: The Bund as a Transnational Connection
Malina Yuen (Grant) Homecoming or Homeless: An Exploration of the Ethno-National Identities of Japanese-Brazilian Dekasseguis
Jascha Stern (Grant) “The Tin Pan-tithesis of melody”: A Socio-Musical History of Eastern European Jews in New York 1880-1920
1:45 – 2:15 AWARDS CEREMONY SMSU 355 (Ballroom)
Professor Jennifer Kerns, Department of History
Joy Beckett, Challenge Program Director
The Young Historians Program with Abstracts (PDF)
The 34th annual Young Historians Conference will held at Portland State University on May 3rd, 2024. The conference brings together PSU’s history department and area high schools that participate in college level history classes, such as the PSU Challenge Program, other dual credit programs, or AP history. Courses include, but are not limited to, American History, Western Civilization, and World History. Courses must include a major assignment that is a history research paper. History instructors select the best of these for the student authors to submit for consideration. A history department lead faculty member works with a jury of history graduate students to assess the submissions and choose up to 30 papers for the presentation.
The conference is organized into concurrent sessions by themes determined by the Jury and lead faculty member. Each session has at least three presenters who have approximately 10 minutes to present their paper. The audience is made up of their classmates and a faculty moderator from the history department. At the end of the presentations, the faculty moderator leads a discussion.
Awards are given for the best papers. Authors of the top papers are encouraged to submit their work to PDXScholar, PSU's online repository of scholarly works. To view information about PDXScholar's readership information and number of downloads, click here.
Guidelines for submissions:
- Paper format should be a google word doc with editing enabled for cplink@pdx.edu. If students don't have a google account they can send it as a Word Document
- All submissions must include the research paper, abstract, and title page emailed to cplink@pdx.edu as one document.
- Every paper should contain the student's name, paper title, school, and history course on the first page of document
Papers from previous Young Historians Conferences can be viewed at PDXScholar. Instructions on how to submit papers can be read here.