The History Department and Phi Alpha Theta are pleased to announce the 10th Annual History Conference to be held on Saturday, April 23, 2022.

The conference will consist of live panel presentations (15 minutes per presenter) moderated by a chair and a commentator, as well as a virtual presentation component (composed of 10-15-minute pre-recorded presentations, to be posted our conference website). Panelists and virtual presenters will be eligible for prizes in the undergraduate and graduate categories.

Please email Phi Alpha Theta with any questions.

Keynote Presentation

Ron Davis | Ph.D. candidate, History Department, The University of Texas at Austin. 

Video is available upon request to the Department of History.

Ron Davis, Kenote Presentation

Ron Davis is Ph.D. candidate in the History Department at the University of Texas at Austin. He is studying under the direction of Dr. Daina Ramey Berry. His dissertation project examines enslaved cowboys, labor, and resistance in antebellum Texas. He is a Fellow for the Center for History and Culture of Southeast Texas and the Upper Gulf Coast, from Lamar University. He co-curated the exhibit Black Cowboys: An American Story which is at the Witte Museum in San Antonio until April 16, 2022. He is also a twenty-five-year veteran of the U.S. military and served in various capacities through five deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Because of these experiences, his research interests also include exploring the lived experiences of black servicewomen and men from the Revolutionary War to Operations Iraqi and Enduring Freedom. In addition, the U.S. Air Force honored Davis with a 4th Air Force Aircrew Excellence Award in 2010 for safely conducting air-to-air refueling with an F-16 Falcon, at night, during a complete loss of electrical power in his aircraft, among other commendations and medals.

Schedule of Events

8:30 - 9:00 am | Opening Remarks

  • PAT Sigma Zeta Faculty Advisers Dr. Shannon Duffy and Dr. Ronald Brown; PAT National President Dr. Jacob Blosser

9:00 - 10:15 am | Session 1A 
Session Commentator |  Jason Rivas, MA Alum, Texas State
Session Chair | Richard Kortz, Undergraduate Student, Texas State University

  • Amber Leigh Hullum, Graduate Student, Texas State | “Trickle Down History: National Standards of Interpretation at Local Level Living History Sites”
  • Hayden Kotara, Undergraduate Student, Texas State |  “The Way They Looked: Roman Women, their Fashion, and Status”
  • Matthew Drew, Undergraduate Student, Mississippi College | “‘Known about Town by Those of His Colour’: Constructing Race through Runaway Advertisements in the Bahama Islands, 1783-1807”

9:00 - 10:15 am | Session 1B
Session Commentator | Dr. Thomas Alter, Texas State Faculty
Session Chair | Courtney Stevens, MA Alum, Texas State University

  • Darnell Bolton, Graduate Student, University of North Texas | “Lincoln & Mitchell: The First Thirteenth Amendment”
  • Sean Berg, Undergraduate Student, Texas State | “‘100% Americanism’: The Nativist Radicalization of Progressive Era America”
  • Keren Zou, Undergraduate Student, University of California at Santa Barbara | “Navigating through the Mist of Exclusion: Chinese Fishermen, Resistance, and Resilience in 1882-1930 California”

10:30 - 11:45 am | Session 2A
Session Commentator | Dr. Ellen Tillman, Texas State Faculty
Session Chair | Jason Rivas, MA Alum, Texas State

  • Ying Xing, Graduate Student, The University of Hong Kong | “Reading André Malraux in China: Shared Predicaments between French and Chinese Unorthodox Leftists, 1936-1945”
  • Rilee Schumann, Undergraduate Student, Texas State | “The Atomic Bomb: The Entrance into the Atomic Era”
  • Walker Gargagliano, Undergraduate Student, University of North Texas | “NATO of the Pacific: Prospects for Security in the Asia-Pacific Region”

10:30 - 11:45 am | Session 2B
Session Commentator | Dr. Jose Carlos de la Puente, Texas State Faculty
Session Chair | Brianna Gray, Undergraduate Student, Texas State

  • Caroline Ocampo, Undergraduate Student, University of Texas at Arlington | “How the Spanish Impacted the Ancestors of Mexico in the Colonial Times”
  • Joshua Browning, Undergraduate Student, Texas State | “‘Nero(tic): Roman Expansion Under the Emperor Nero”
  • Anthony Cosmi, Undergraduate Student, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania | “State-building and Governance in Modern Somalia: A Historiography”

12:00 - 1:15 pm | Keynote Presentation

Mr. Ron W. Davis II, Ph.D. Candidate, University of Texas at Austin | “‘Let Crips have 31 beeves for a negro’: Enslaved Cowboys, Black Cowboys, and a Museum Exhibit”

1:30 - 2:45 pm | Session 3A
Session Commentator | Dr. Jacob Blosser, PAT President; Texas Woman’s University Faculty
Session Chair | Amber Hullum, MA Candidate, Texas State

  • Cassidy Bowland, Undergraduate Student, Texas State | “‘Sinners at the Footstool of Mercy’: The Religious Response to Yellow Fever in 1793 Philadelphia”
  • Nabila Nader, Undergraduate Student, Texas State | “How Vestal Virgins Attained Significant Privileges and Rights that Defied Roman Conventions for Women”
  • Christopher Walton, Graduate Student, Southern Methodist University | “Recommendations and Repercussions: The Bounds of Religious Authority in a Massachusetts Regional Association of Ministers during the Revolutionary Era”

1:30 - 2:45 pm | Session 3B
Session Commentator | Ian Melendez, MA Candidate, Texas State
Session Chair | Jayden Angelito, Undergraduate Student, Texas State

  • Libby Whitfield, Undergraduate Student, Texas State | “Toga Party: How Pompeii and Herculaneum Contributed to our Understanding of Roman Fashion”
  • Richard Kortz, Undergraduate Student, Texas State | “Roman Roads: A Brief Comparison & Background of Iberian and Central Italian Roads”
  • Monica Segura, Undergraduate Student, Texas State | “St. Thomas Aquinas and the Persistence of Memory”

3:00 - 4:15 pm | Session 4A
Session Commentator | Dr. Elizabeth Bishop, Texas State Faculty
Session Chair | Megan Schwab, MA Candidate, Texas State

  • Jayden Angelito, Undergraduate Student, Texas State | “The Roman Colosseum”
  • Charles Henson, Undergraduate Student, Texas State | “Slave to Gladiator”
  • Madison Buchanan, Undergraduate Student, Texas State | The Golden Hoard: The Legacy of the Romanization of the British Isles

3:00 - 4:15 pm | Session 4B

  • Shannon Duffy, Interview with Kelsie Brook Eckert, President, Host, and Project Director, The Remedial Herstory Project: The Other 50% of History Class

The Remedial Herstory Project is a nonprofit working to get women’s history into the K-12 curriculum. We produce media, connect resources, and importantly build lesson plans integrating primary sources for use in the 7-12 classroom primarily. RHP is female-founded and operated. Our Board is entirely volunteer. We were founded by educators for educators. In 2021, we presented a TEDx Talk at the Mashpee Women event about the barriers and methodology for getting women into the curriculum. We also launched a new YouTube channel telling Crash Course Women's US and World History. We produce a weekly podcast that can be found wherever you get your podcasts. We have over 75 inquiry-based lesson plans on our website and 25 C3-style inquiries available for practicing educators.

4:30 - 5:00 PM | Zoom Social Time

5:00 - 6:00 PM | Closing Remarks
Announcement of 1st, 2nd and 3rd prizes for Best Undergraduate Panelist Paper, Best Undergraduate Poster Paper and Best Graduate Paper

Phi Alpha Theta would like to thank the Texas State History Department for their support, as well as our Keynote Speaker Ron Davis, PAT President Dr. Jason Blosser, and Herstory Founder Kelsie Eckhart. We would also like to thank the following individuals for helping make this virtual conference possible: History Department Chair Dr. Jeff Helgeson, History Department Administrative Assistants Madelyn Patland and Roberta Ruiz, Texas State Tech Support Specialist Adam Clark, PAT Faculty Advisers Dr. Ronald Brown and Dr. Shannon E. Duffy, the PAT Officers Wesley Moore, Amber Hullum, and Jaclyn Zapata, and the faculty who served on our Paper Prize Committees: Dr. Ronald Brown, Dr. Elizabeth Bishop, Dr. Jose Carlos de la Puente, Dr. Shannon Duffy, Ms. Trace Etienne, Dr. James McWilliams, and Ms. Margaret Vaverek.