The History Department is excited to announce new department leadership: Dr. Mara Lazda (Professor, History) will serve as Chairperson of History, and Dr. Kate Culkin (Professor, History), will serve as Deputy Chairperson from Fall 2024.
Dr. Lazda was voted in by full-time department faculty to the position in Spring 2024, and will begin her three-year term from the first day of the Fall 2024 (August 28, 2024). Ms. Paulette Randall remains the department’s coordinator.
Our sincere gratitude to Dr. Tamar Rothenberg who served as Chair of the History Department for over a decade, and will be on fellowship leave for the Academic Year 2024/2025.
If you have any questions about our courses, faculty, or events, please reach out to Dr. Lazda and Dr. Culkin.
Dr. Mara Lazda earned her Ph.D. in History at Indiana University. She is a founding member of the BCC Social Justice Network and advisory board member of BCC’s Womxn Up! resource center. She also serves as the History Option faculty coordinator.
Professor Lazda’s research on twentieth-century Latvia, nationalism, postsocialism, gender and constructions of nationalism and transnationalism has been published as chapters and as articles in Nationalities Papers, the Journal of Baltic Studies, International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, and Aspasia.
Dr. Katherine (Kate) Culkin, a Professor of History, joined the BCC faculty in 2007. She earned a B.A. in English from Middlebury College and a Ph.D. in history from New York University. She is the author of Harriet Hosmer: A Cultural Biography (UMass Press, 2010) and an associate editor of the Harriet Jacobs Family Papers (UNC Press, 2008). She has also published on eportfolio pedagogy, the history of the Hall of Fame for Great Americans, and 19th-century science fiction by women. She primarily teaches American history and the history of women in the United States.
