• Teaches history of sex and sexuality in the United States
• Respectful, inviting, and kind about students’ views, especially when different from her own
• Does not support Catholic teaching in these areas, but encourages students to disagree and advance their own arguments

Gail Bederman specializes in the history of sexuality, sex, and women in the United States.  (She is currently writing a book on the earliest advocates of contraception in the U.S. and Great Britain.)  Students seeking a professor who brings Catholic views to bear on these subjects will not find one in Bederman.  What they will find is a professor exemplary for her kindness, her ability and willingness (even fervor) to listen to the opinions of students who disagree with her, and her encouragement that students develop and articulate their own views on these subjects.

Bederman teaches two popular courses on the history of U.S. sexuality, together covering four hundred years of history.  These courses often feature heavy reading loads, but the material is interesting and exciting for students passionate about the subjects.  Bederman typically assigns three seven-page essays throughout the semester to complement weekly two-page journal assignments.  While her courses fill up quickly, it’s worth contacting her to be placed on a waiting list; many students drop upon seeing her syllabi, discovering that this is anything but an “easy sailing” course.  Her classes are a perfect opportunity for students seeking an occasion to develop and hone their Catholic perspectives in a challenging but civil and courteous atmosphere.

Bederman enjoys talking with students during her office hours, and genuinely seeks to understand their views when they differ from her own.  She is a perennial favorite of many of Notre Dame’s most ardent pro-life students, and embodies a fairness and openness refreshing among the professoriate.  Students who already have a strong Catholic formation and a well-developed grasp on Catholic teaching in the areas of sexuality are encouraged to challenge themselves in Bederman’s classes.  Students without this foundation should seek courses that provide it before taking Bederman.

Steven Brady

• Specialist in U.S. diplomatic and military history
• Excellent lecturer
• Good sense of humor

Professor Brady teaches regularly in the History Department and also serves as an advisor in First Year of Studies.  His own research focuses on post war American foreign relations and he has written a fine book Eisenhower and Adenauer: Alliance Maintenance Under Pressure 1953-1960.  Brady’s teaching interests extend more broadly to diplomatic and military history topics.  He is well known for his courses “The History of the Vietnam War,” “U.S. Foreign Policy to 1945,” “World War II: A Global History,” and others.    

Brady receives very positive reviews from his students.  It is easy to understand why.  He is an excellent lecturer, well organized, and interesting.  Many of his classes are taught at an early morning time period, but despite this students rarely miss a Brady lecture.  He provides helpful outlines and relates his lectures at times to current events and issues.  He is available to students outside of class and welcomes the opportunity to get to know them.  He engages in good discussion in class and welcomes student questions.  Students should be aware that Brady expects them to attend every class.

Brady truly cares about his students and seeks their wellbeing.  Students can stop by his office and chat about class related subjects and others as well.  He understands and promotes Notre Dame’s mission to form both the hearts and the minds of students.  History majors and non-majors should seek to take a class with him.

Catherine Cangany

• Specialist in early American and Atlantic history with a focus on cultural and economic history
• Creative scholar and committed teacher
• Aids students in developing their skills as historians

Professor Catherine Cangany has established a name for herself with her first book, Frontier Seaport: Detroit’s Transformation into an Atlantic Entrepôt (2014), which skillfully integrates the fields of Atlantic history and Native American history.  She is a specialist in the economies, cultures, and material cultures of the French and British Atlantic worlds.

Cangany offers courses that focus “on commerce, religion, and social and cultural practices in the North American colonies.”  Among her notable classes are “Colonial America,” “Atlantic Revolutions,” and “The Consumer Revolution.”  She is an interesting lecturer who encourages her students to truly engage the topics they cover.  Students who have a special interest in the beginnings of the American experiment should take her classes.  She will serve as Director of Undergraduate Studies in the spring semester of 2016.

Kathleen Sprows Cummings

• Historian of U.S. Catholicism, history of women
• Director of the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism
• Caring teacher

Professor Kathleen Cummings holds a joint appointment in American Studies and History at Notre Dame.  She also is well known as the Director of the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism.  Her own scholarly work focuses on the history of women and religion in the United States.  She published her first book, New Women of the Old Faith: Gender and American Catholicism in the Progressive Era, in 2009 and is currently at work on a study entitled Citizen Saints: Catholics and Canonization in America.

Cummings is a caring teacher who is very excited to introduce her students to important developments and figures within American Catholicism.  She offers a signature course on “Catholics in America,” which is taught very much in an “American Studies” approach.  She includes a lot of time in each class for discussion and for students to ask questions.  She engages a range of topics, but mainly from the perspective of a committed liberal Catholic.  Professor Cummings is available and enthusiastic about meeting students outside of class and encourages students to participate in extracurricular activities including talks and presentations offered through the Cushwa Center.

John Deak

• Specializes in imperial and political history and the history of modern Europe
• Acting Director of Undergraduate Studies in the History Department
• Very committed to his teaching and engages his students in lots of interaction

John Deak is an expert in the imperial and political history of twentieth century Europe.  His book on state building in the Habsburg Empire, Forging a Multinational State: State Making in Imperial Austria from the Enlightenment to the First World War was recently published by Stanford University Press.  Professor Deak is known for his wide ranging interests, which include the First World War, political Catholicism, and fascism.

Deak is an able and engaging teacher who likes to combine both lecture and discussion in his classes.  He expects his students will do the reading for each class and more broadly expects engagement from them.  Students should not take his class unless they expect to work.  Nonetheless, Deak is a sympathetic professor and he can be flexible to help his students when required.

Deak is well-known for his courses on European history, such as his “Revolutions of 1848” class.  He has developed a significant following for the course he teaches jointly with Professor Sebastian Rosato in the Political Science Department “Europe at War.”  He is also popular in his own right as a humorous, intelligent, and accessible professor who gives special attention to students’ writing and helps them become better writers.

Felipe Fernandez-Armesto

• Renowned British scholar who teaches at Notre Dame every fall and in the Notre Dame London Program in the spring
• Possesses an enormous range of interests and teaches a wide range of classes
• True Catholic intellectual

Professor Fernandez-Armesto is a brilliant scholar whose interests range from the Atlantic to early modern Europe to Latin America and to the Mediterranean.  He also specializes in environmental, imperial, intellectual, and global history.  Among some of his publications are Before Columbus: Exploration and Colonization from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic 1229-1492 (1987), Millennium: A History of Our Last Thousand Years (1995), Civilizations (2000), Food: A History (2001), Pathfinders: a Global History of Exploration (2006), 1492: The Year the World Began (2009), and Our America: A Hispanic History of the United States (2014).  Such publications confirm the range of his interests.

Professor Fernandez-Armesto is an inviting professor who wants to get to know his students.  He is known for his hospitality and for having students over to his home.  He offers courses that are sometimes out of the mainstream, such as his recent course on “Humans and Other Apes.”  Students who get to know him on the Notre Dame campus can at times reconnect with him in London and vice versa.  Not surprisingly, Professor Fernandez-Armesto has something of a British approach to his teaching and he expects students to be self-directed and conscientious without his constant oversight.

Dan Graff

• Specialist in Labor History
• Excellent mentor
• Director, Higgins Labor Program at the Center for Social Concerns

Professor Daniel Graff has a passionate interest in U.S. labor history.  He has given excellent service to the History Department as Director of Undergraduate Studies over the past decade, but has recently moved on to direct the Higgins Labor Program housed in the Center for Social Concerns.  Graff is interested in the relationship between workers and the labor movement and he is a strong supporter of unions in America.

Graff is an excellent teacher and in 2011 received the Edmund P. Joyce Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching.  He effectively combines lecture and discussion in his classes and encourages his students to articulate their views clearly.  He makes good use of historical scholarship, memoirs, polemical writings, and films in his courses.  Students who are interested in the development of organized labor and the challenges it confronts at the moment would do well to take a class with Graff.

Graff has extensive experience advising undergraduate students and is a fine mentor.  His work at the Higgins Center aligns him strongly in favor of American workers and he will be glad to have students be involved in the efforts of the center he leads.

Brad Gregory

• Renowned historian of early modern Europe and the Reformation
• Catholic intellectual
• Brings faith and history into conversation through his assignments and syllabi
• Cares deeply for students and genuinely gets to know them

Brad Gregory, professor of early modern Europe and Director of the Institute for Advanced Study, is an excellent undergraduate teacher and noted scholar whose Catholic faith influences both his scholarly work and his investment in students’ intellectual and holistic formation.

Gregory’s research interests focus on “Christianity in the Reformation era (sixteenth and seventeenth centuries), including magisterial Protestantism, radical Protestantism, and Roman Catholicism approached comparatively and cross-confessionally.”  He is noted for his prize winning study Salvation at Stake: Christian Martyrdom in Early Modern Europe (2001) and for his much discussed study of the impact of the Reformation, The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society (2011).

Gregory—who holds advanced degrees in philosophy as well as history—provides students with detailed exploration of texts that explicate and make accessible the impact of major historical events such as the Protestant Reformation.  Gregory’s bellwether course offering, “Christianity, Commerce, and Consumerism,” is a student favorite, connecting theology, history, and economics while forcing students to confront the sometimes uncomfortable questions surrounding their own material situation within the world.  The syllabus for this course is outstanding, providing students with insights into texts that would be commonplace in theology curricula as well.

Gregory is renowned for his attentiveness to and care for students on a personal level, and makes a concerted effort to be approachable to students.  In addition to holding regular office hours, Gregory holds “social hours” during which students can meet with him and talk about anything at all, and he commonly gets together with students on an individual basis to talk about Notre Dame, the Catholic faith, or anything else.  Gregory begins each class with prayer, and explicitly implicates the Catholic tradition in his classroom discussions and teaching.  While his courses and assignments are challenging, they are considered among the most formative and enriching on offer at Notre Dame.

Patrick Griffin

• History Department Chair and very active scholar
• Specializes in early American history, Atlantic history, and early modern Ireland and Britain
• Terrific teacher and a gifted lecturer who truly engages his students

Patrick Griffin specializes in early American history, Atlantic history, and early modern Ireland and Britain.  He is a very active scholar with such notable books to his name as The People with No Name: Ireland’s Ulster Scots, America’s Scots Irish, and the Creation of a British Atlantic World (2001), American Leviathan: Empire, Nation, and Revolutionary Frontier (2007), and America’s Revolution (2012).  Griffin is presently working on an important study of George and Charles Townshend, “British brothers who initiated imperial reforms on the eve of the American Revolution.”

Griffin was a Notre Dame undergraduate in the 1980s and is deeply committed to the university.  He is also now a Notre Dame parent.  He is very involved in various university activities beyond the History Department, including the Keough Institute for Irish Studies and various international scholar exchange arrangements.  He is very well connected on both sides of the Atlantic.  Griffin teaches courses in both American history and Irish history.  He requires hard work from his students, assigning a lot of reading in his classes.  But he is accessible outside of class, gets to know each student’s name, and gives great lectures.  He challenges his students to get the most from their Notre Dame education and he certainly contributes his efforts to assuring that they do so.

Daniel Hobbins

• Important medievalist at Notre Dame
• Thoughtful and able scholar
• Special interests in cultural, religious, and intellectual history

Professor Daniel Hobbins is an important contributor to the noted medieval history program at Notre Dame.  With the recent retirement of Thomas F.X. Noble, Hobbins will take on an important leadership role in the program.  He is a specialist in the High and Late Medieval periods, with a focus on France.  His research interests include medieval authorship and his book Authorship and Publicity before Print (2009) received the Jacques Barzun Prize from the American Philosophical Society.

Hobbins teaches survey courses as well as upper division specialist courses.  He offers Western Civilization I, which is a broad ranging course for those who are interested in major themes and concepts of the development of states and societies from Mesopotamia through to the Renaissance.  Hobbins offers engaging upper division courses including his class on the history of Medieval Paris, which explores the architecture, social and religious life, and economic development of this great cultural center.  All students interested in specializing in medieval history should get to know Professor Hobbins.  He will be most willing to engage and advise such students.

Thomas Kselman

• French historian and proud Francophile
• Accessible outside of class and always takes time to answer questions in class
• Focuses not only on the important people and ideas of a time period, but also on popular culture and the experience of the common man/woman

Thomas Kselman is a specialist in modern France and European religious history 1700-present.  He has an excellent sensibility for religious topics and takes faith questions seriously.  His early books give some indication of his thoughtfulness and creativity as a scholar.  They include Miracles and Prophecies in Nineteenth-Century France (1983) and Death and the Afterlife in Modern France (1993).  He is currently writing a book on the history of religious liberty in France in the aftermath of the French revolution.

He is a true gem in the History Department, known for his collegiality and generosity.  Unfortunately, he is moving towards retirement.  Students should seize the opportunity to take a course with him before he reaches emeritus status.  He is a very creative teacher who likes to incorporate art, music, and literature into his courses and into his lectures.  He has enormous enthusiasm for his subject and conveys this to students.  Sometimes he can get way laid on tangents in his lectures, and not always follow a strict outline.  But serious students who put in the effort can connect the dots and get much from his classes.

Semion Lyandres

• Russian historian specializing in 20^th century Russia
• True command of his subject matter
• High expectations for students

Semion Lyandres is a specialist in 20^th-century Russian history.  His research has focused on the Bolshevik Revolution and its forerunners and consequences.  His most recent book, The Fall of Tsarism: Untold Stories of the February 1917 Revolution, was published by Oxford University Press in 2013.  His important work on the Russian Revolution deepens understanding of one of the seminal events of the 20^th century. Lyandres is a person of strong character and blessed with intellectual and personal integrity.  He takes his own Jewish faith seriously, but possesses an appreciation of and appropriate respect for the Catholic mission of Notre Dame.

Lyandres teaches a wide range of classes in Russian history, modern totalitarianism, and totalitarian regimes in 20^th-century Europe.  He also has played an important role in teaching the honors methodology and historiography classes in the History Department.  He is a teacher who wants his students to understand well all that has occurred in modern Russia.  He does not hold back in revealing the painful details of totalitarian rule in the Soviet Union under Lenin and Stalin.  His course on “Russia from Rasputin to Putin” should attract the interest of students who want to learn more about the nation that the United States faced for almost a half century in the Cold War.

Lyandres’s lectures are well organized, and he also likes to engage his students in discussion of the assigned readings.  Lyandres’s superb knowledge of his subject is well displayed in his class lectures, but so also is his openness to considering the contributions of his students.  He gives his students a fine array of reading assignments, including works of history, journals, memoirs, and novels such as Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago. (Some students complain about the amount of reading assigned for his courses.)  Students may also find his classes to be ones that help their moral formation and personal growth as they learn about great men like Tolstoy and also of the evil pursued by Stalin and others in the name of building a “classless society.”

Rev. Wilson (Bill) Miscamble, C.S.C.

• Specializes in U.S. political and diplomatic history and Australian history
• Vocal supporter of Notre Dame’s Catholic mission
• Eager to get to know students well

Fr. Bill Miscamble is one of the History Department’s most well-known professors on campus. Known for his Australian accent, tall frame, and outspoken advocacy for the university’s Catholic character and leadership, Fr. Bill is also an excellent teacher and well-respected historian. From beginning every class with prayer, to being highly active in campus activities (as President of University Faculty for Life and a vocal supporter of many other institutional and student-led projects and initiatives), Fr. Bill exemplifies Catholic excellence as a professor.

Fr. Bill teaches a U.S. history survey course for first year students, and upper division courses in U.S. foreign policy and in Australian history. His courses are challenging but enriching. Fr. Bill brings up difficult issues in his courses—from Truman’s decision to employ the atomic bombs, to euthanasia, to abortion, and beyond—and pushes students to think clearly about historical issues and their contemporary relevance.

Fr. Bill speaks regularly for campus groups, has written several books aimed specifically at students and college-aged Catholics, and speaks nationally about Catholic higher education. He makes ample time to be present to students and works with them on thesis projects. He also invites them to Moreau Seminary for movie nights and meets with them for group dinners.  He seeks to be a mentor to his students and is concerned for their spiritual and moral lives as well as for their intellectual development.  He strongly supports Notre Dame’s Catholic mission and the infusion of faith into all aspects of student life.

Rebecca Tinio McKenna

• Specialist in U.S., social and cultural history
• Thoughtful and caring instructor
• Very approachable

Professor Rebecca McKenna focuses her research “on modern American social and cultural history” and “in the history of U.S. imperialism, political economy, and the intersections of capitalism and culture.”  She is presently revising her dissertation into a book manuscript.  Her project “examines imperial ideology through a study of the built environment, more specifically, a Daniel Burnham-designed hill station in the colonial Philippines.”  She is a thoughtful and creative scholar.

Professor McKenna is a teacher deeply concerned for her students.  She seeks to offer courses that focus on social, cultural, and intellectual developments in the United States.  She regularly offers a course on the “United States in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era” and tracks the dramatic transitions that took place in America during this period.  As a social historian McKenna gives significant attention to issues concerning class, race, and gender as well as to questions of cultural formation.  She uses a wide array of readings and expects her students to complete them.  McKenna is a good and encouraging advisor to students.  She takes her own faith seriously and this is evident in her teaching.

Margaret Meserve

• Specialist in early modern European history, Italian Renaissance
• Recently appointed Associate Dean, College of Arts and Letters
• Capable teacher

Professor Margaret Meserve studies the Italian Renaissance and is a very well regarded specialist in her field.  Her first book Empires of Islam in Renaissance Historical Thought (Harvard, 2008) received a number of notable prizes.  She is currently working on a book, The News Cycle in Renaissance Rome,” that explores the circulation of news, information, propaganda, and disinformation in Rome in the first decades after the arrival of print (ca 1470-1527).”  Meserve is an important member of the medieval history/early modern Europe contingent within the History Department and is a historian that students interested in these areas should definitely take.  She recently has been tapped to serve as Associate Dean in the College of Arts and Letters.  This appointment might reduce the number of courses she is able to offer.

Meserve is friendly and approachable and teaches interesting courses on the Italian Renaissance and early modern Rome among other classes.  She works with students on their writing and allows students a rewrite on some of their papers.  She adopts a broad cultural approach to her teaching and gives attention to art, religion, and literature in her courses.  They should be of special appeal to Medieval Studies and Art History majors as well as to history students interested in the period.  Meserve’s courses should address interesting questions for those eager to understand better the history of the Catholic Church and the development of Western Civilization.

Mark Noll

• Leading expert in American religious and cultural history
• Major Christian thinker and influential American Protestant intellectual
• Devoted teacher

Professor Mark Noll is among the most distinguished members of the History Department.  He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 2006 he received the National Endowment for the Humanities Medal at a White House ceremony.  Noll’s research interests have ranged widely over the history of Christianity in the United States and Canada.  He is the author or editor of over 30 books.  Among his recent works are America’s God, From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln (2002), The Civil War as a Theological Crisis (2006), and God and Race in American Politics (2008).

Although he is an important figure in the graduate program in the History Department, Noll still devotes considerable time and energy to his undergraduate teaching.  He offers courses that should be of interest to students who seek to explore the intersection of religion and American political and social history.  He recently has taught “World History of 20th Century Christianity” and “American Politics and Religion.”  Professor Noll also has a great interest in Canadian history and he offers a fine undergraduate course that tracks the development of the U.S.’s neighbor to the north.

Noll provides his students with in-class outlines of that day’s lessons and strongly encourages in-class questions on his own exposition of assignments.  He has a knack for elucidating the significance and connectedness of and between landmark cultural (religious, political, and social) events in American history.  This is even the case when students think that they know these events well. Given the presence of the lecture outline, students can be tempted to follow Noll’s lecturing, which can be a little dry, less closely than they ought.  But Noll rewards careful listening with an amazing ability to elucidate historical developments for their contemporary implications.  This enlivens his classes. For example, he asks students to write letters to presidential candidates during election years and has asked students to adjudicate Notre Dame’s lawsuit against the Health and Human Services (HHS) insurance mandate.  While he does not regularly lead the discussion sections of his courses, he is very conscientious about the TAs he selects, to ensure a positive tutorial experience.

Noll is a deeply serious Christian believer.  He participates in campus Right to Life activities, and presents religious history fairly, analytically, and with an eye toward how the study of history can form modern students.  The perspectival blessings of courses with Noll enrich students and enable them to think more perspicuously about religion and culture in American and global life today.

Paul Ocobock

• African history specialist
• Lively and engaging professor
• Excellent mentor

Professor Ocobock is a self-described historian of 20^th-century Africa with a specialization in “the histories of African peoples living in East Africa.”  His recent research has focused on “the everyday lives of young Kenyan African men growing up in British colonialism.”  He is working on a book tentatively titled Coming of Age in Kenya Colony.

Ocobock is one of the younger and more energetic members of the department.  He carries the substantial responsibility of teaching all of African history within in the department and he does it well.  He teaches broad based courses that cover from the earliest times to the present day.  He also has offered courses on colonialism and on the role of Africans in the global slave trade.  His courses are always interesting and enjoyable.

Ocobock seeks to engage his students and to draw them into the study of a subject with which many have little familiarity.  He is willing to take time away from his scheduled material to explain historical methodology and the academic landscape for historians vis-à-vis other academic disciplines.  A more liberal member of the faculty, he is open to debate and entertains all viewpoints on a given topic.  Outside of the classroom, he makes himself available even beyond office hours.  He is more than willing to help students get started on research or other extracurricular activities related to the History Department.  He is a fine advisor and a very capable mentor for students undertaking their thesis research.

Jaime M. Pensado

• Specialist in Latin American history, most notably Mexico
• Excellent mentor
• Resident Fellow at the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study 2015-16

Professor Jaime Pensado is a specialist in the history of contemporary Mexico.  He has given particular attention to student movements and youth culture in the 1960s.  His first book, Rebel Mexico: Student Unrest and Authoritarian Politican Culture during the Long Sixties (2013), received the Mexico History Book Prize from the Conference on Latin American History.

During the 2015-16 academic year, Pensado holds a residential fellowship at the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Studies.  There he will work on his next book project exploring Catholic youth in Cold War Mexico.  In this study he will examine how both “conservative and progressive sectors of the Catholic Church––particularly those invested in education, student politics and entertainment––respond[ed] to the contentious environment that emerged inside Mexico’s most important universities during the postwar era.”

Professor Pensado offers fine lecture courses in Latin American history.  He also has offered courses on “Art and Revolution in Latin American History” and “Latin American History Through Film.”  Students respond positively to his teaching.  He is an excellent guide for them on their research, and a first rate mentor for students working on Honor Theses.  He has received the Undergraduate Mentoring Award from the Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies.  Pensado is also very involved in the Institute for Latino Studies and well connected to advise students who want to participate in study abroad programs such as the one in Mexico.

Richard Pierce

• Award winning teacher
• Specialist in African American, urban, and Civil Rights history
• Concurrent Professor in Department of Africana Studies

Professor Richard Pierce specializes in African American, urban, and Civil Rights history.  His scholarly work has explored important areas of the African American experience.  His first book Polite Protest: The Political Economy of Race in Indianapolis, 1920-1970 was published by Indiana University Press in 2005. He is presently working on a study which explores the “processes by which African American families and institutions taught Jim Crow to their children in the United States during the time period 1895-1965.”

Pierce has been an important and crucial presence over the last two decades in assuring that the history of African Americans has been well taught at Notre Dame.  His courses are normally cross-listed in both the History and Africana Studies Departments.  He teaches courses on “Civil Rights History,” “African-American Resistance,” and a seminar “Black Power.”   These courses are well prepared, but can be challenging for students with little familiarity of the African American experience in the United States.  Professor Pierce is deeply concerned about his students and seeks to draw them in deeply into the complex and difficult subjects that he teaches.  The high quality of Pierce’s teaching was recognized in 2009 when he received the Sheedy Award for Teaching in the College of Arts and Letters.  In his acceptance speech Pierce wrote “For those of us of faith we believe that the ability to teach is one of God’s gifts.”  He has been richly endowed by God with this gift, and he has sought to give thanks to God by using it so well.

Rory Rapple

• Specialist in British and Irish history
• Cambridge-trained historian with something of a British approach to his teaching
• Interesting courses

Professor Rory Rapple teaches courses in Tudor and Elizabethan England and in late medieval and early modern Ireland.  He is the author of Martial Power and Elizabethan Political Culture: Military Men in England and Ireland, 1558-1594 (2009).  He is an active scholar and is engaged on a number of book and article projects at the moment.

Rapple’s undergraduate courses include those on Tudor England and Medieval Ireland and these are courses that provide a student with valuable insight into important areas of British/Irish history.  Rapple was raised in Ireland and did his doctoral work at the University of Cambridge, so he was not overly familiar with American pedagogical approaches during his initial years at Notre Dame.  He has adjusted his approach well to the local scene and now offers courses that contain interesting material which he covers well.  His lilting Irish accent can add a certain charm to his courses.  His grading has eased in recent years, but he still offers valuable and frank feedback on the quality of student’s work.  If students wish to gain a serious knowledge of Irish and/or British history, they should take Rapple’s classes.  Rapple is serious about his own faith commitment, but does not raise this matter often directly in class.  He is an engaging conversationalist, however, and would readily respond to student questions and inquiries outside of class.

James Smyth

• Irish and British history specialist
• Very knowledgeable
• Department’s most laid back member

Professor James “Jim” Smyth is a case of looks can be deceiving.  Usually somewhat disheveled in appearance, he is a talented historian of modern Irish and British history well known for his books The Men of No Property: Irish Radicals and Popular Politics in the late Eighteenth Century (1992) and The Making of the United Kingdom 1660-1800: State, Religion and Identity in Britain and Ireland (2001).  Smyth is an important part of the Irish Studies community at Notre Dame and is well involved in the work of the Keough Institute for Irish Studies.

Professor Smyth teaches in what some students describe as the “European manner.”  He assigns readings, but leaves it to students to determine whether or not they will address the assigned work.  He usually requires in his upper division courses a research paper and a final.  Some students have found it disconcerting to have so much of their grade dependent on just two exercises.  Students who can deal with such anxieties should go ahead and take Professor Smyth.  He creates a relaxed and informal atmosphere in his classes and can engage in very entertaining story telling in his lectures.  Students who wish to study in the Notre Dame London and Dublin programs should be especially eager to take his classes, such as “Irish History 1600-1800” and “Irish History 1800-Present” and “British History 1660-1880.”

Professor Smyth has retained his heavy Irish accent and will win no prizes for his sartorial elegance.  He is known for smoking his pipe, which he sometimes does at the Linebacker Tavern.  Departmental legend has it that all of Smyth’s graded papers come back with large smudge marks from his tobacco stained hands.  Students should be disappointed if they miss out on this.  While Professor Smyth is something of a character, he is also a truly engaged scholar of Ireland.  His own life experience has equipped him well for the teaching he undertakes.  He is not the most accessible professor outside of class, but students will benefit from their contact with him inside the classroom.

Rev. Robert Sullivan

• Specialist in European cultural history, modern Britain, Catholicism
• Administrator—Associate Vice President for Academic Mission Support
• Devoted priest-mentor

Fr. Robert Sullivan combines his duties as a teacher and administrator extremely well.  Despite his range of responsibilities, he is available to his students who deeply appreciate his counsel and support.  Fr. Sullivan’s research has recently focused on modern British history, and he published Macaulay: The Tragedy of Power in 2010.

Fr. Sullivan has offered courses in the past on “The History of Catholicism since 1500” and has also offered valuable seminars on “The Enlightenment in Europe” and “Britain and Its Empire 1815-1999.”  Obviously students interested in the history of Catholicism should take his lecture course.  But students eager to study with a priest during their time on campus are encouraged to work with Fr. Sullivan.  His courses are extremely informative and entertaining.  He possesses a wide store of knowledge across a diverse range of areas and he is willing to share this with his students.  He is also willing to point students in the right direction with regard to outside reading, either research related or otherwise.  Although highly intelligent, he is nonetheless very accessible and is truly interested in his students as persons and not simply for their classroom performance.  He genuinely cares about his students and their lives, just as a good priest should.

Fr. Sullivan is a member of the administration as well as the History Department.  He is knowledgeable in the broader developments of the university, and is a valuable resource outside of class.  Fr. Sullivan is also an excellent thesis mentor and is willing and eager to advise students who may have a conservative or religious outlook.

Deborah Tor

• Specialist in Medieval Islamic history
• Brilliant scholar
• Truly committed teacher

Professor Deborah Tor “specializes in the political, social, religious, and military history of the medieval Middle East and Central Asia, from the rise of Islam until the 13^th century.”  She is a well published scholar and her work has addressed such topics as “Medieval Islamic military slavery” and the “survival and Islamization of Late Antique Iranian traditions of rulership.”

Professor Tor teaches courses such as “Medieval Middle East,” that covers topics with which most students are not familiar.  Some students can find the subject matter difficult because it is so foreign to them.  But engagement with her topics brings substantial rewards, particularly if students are prepared to work hard.  Professor Tor is always well prepared for her lectures and delivers them with conviction.  She holds high standards for her students, but is more than willing to help students to reach them.  She is available outside of the class room, and is only too willing to work with students on their paper topics.  Her courses provide students with a more nuanced and sophisticated view of history.  She appreciates rigorous argument and clear thinking.

Students who are interested in the role of religion as a major force in history should consider Professor Tor’s courses.  Those who want to understand more about the foundation and development of Islam should take a class with her.  Professor Tor takes her own Jewish faith very seriously and she encourages Notre Dame’s Catholic students to do the same with their faith.  She is especially knowledgeable about Catholic theological and doctrinal matters and urges her students to deepen their own knowledge in these areas.