The Contemporary History Institute enjoys a national and international reputation for excellence. It has hosted scholars, speakers and students from around the globe. Through graduate training, research scholarship, and an active series of sponsored events, Ohio University's Contemporary History Institute provides historically grounded analysis of contemporary world affairs at both the national and international levels. Explore the pages of our website to learn more about this unique intellectual enterprise.

The Contemporary History Institute is located in Brown House, a remodeled early 20th-century house located on the College Green. In addition to housing the Institute's central office, Brown House contains a seminar room, a student lounge and computer laboratory, and faculty offices. Brown House is the center for most Institute activities, and because it houses both faculty and students, it provides ample opportunities for the informal contacts that are a special characteristic of this program.

We welcome your further inquiries. Please contact:

Dr. Steven M. Miner, Director
Contemporary History Institute
Brown House
Ohio University
Athens, Ohio 45701

(Tel) 740.593.4362
(Fax) 740.593.0097
(Email) conhist@ohio.edu

The 2012 Baker Peace Conference is titled "Crime & Punishment: Securing Domestic Traquility in the 21st Century" The keynote speaker will be Mr. William Bratton, former head of both the New York City Police Department and the Los Angeles PD. More details are available - click on Sponsored Events.

Joseph Venosa received an appointment as Visiting Assistant Professor of East Africa and the Indian Ocean World at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio.  Earlier this month, Joseph defended his dissertation entitled “Paths toward the Nation: Islamic Identity, the Eritrean Muslim League and Nationalist Mobilization, 1941-61.”  Joseph finished his Ph.D. degree under the direction of his advisor, Nicholas M. Creary. 

Jared Bibler has been awarded the Baker Peace Fellowship for 2011-2012. He is completing his dissertation on the Guatemalan rebel group, the Revolutionary Organization of the People at Arms, 1971-1996. He is working under the direction of Patrick Barr-Melej.

Pete Wickman has won the 2011-12 John Cady Fellowship. A committee of the Graduate Council selected the winners of Ohio University's named fellowships, one of which is the Cady Fellowship. Each department in the university can nominate one graduate student for these named fellowships. Winning a university-wide competition is thus a terrific achievement.  Pete is working with his advisor, John Brobst, to complete his doctoral thesis on British policy in China during the Second World War. 

Dr. Jeff Reardon, who earned his Ph.D. from the department in 2008, published “Breaking the US Navy’s ‘Gun Club’ Mentality in the South Pacific” in The Journal of Military History (April 2011), a premier journal in the field. Dr. Reardon tells the story of how the US Navy came to grips with unanticipated developments in nighttime warfare during the Solomon Campaign of 1942—offering larger lessons on how the Navy, like other large and complex organizations, processed and learned from its mistakes at an institutional level. He currently teaches at Montgomery County Community College in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania.

Jack Epstein, who was in the CHI seminar during academic year 2003-04, has just been named the McWilliams Fellow by the Miller Center National Fellowship Program beginning in Autumn 2011. The award is not only prestigious but also highly competitive, with more than 100 applicants from the nation’s top graduate programs in political science, history, sociology, public policy, and international relations. The fellowship, which is residential, will give Jack the opportunity to use the marvelous resources of the University of Virginia library as well as to interact with the other fellows at the Miller Center. It will also afford him the time to finish his study of American racketeering law from the 1920s through the 1970s.