October 2017

The American Historical Association announced the winners of its 2017 prizes, to be awarded at the 132nd annual meeting in Washington, DC, January 4–7, 2018. John Merriman will receive the Award for Scholarly Distinction to senior historians for lifetime achievement. The Raymond J.

On April 13, 2017, eleven finalists competed in Yale’s first 3-Minute Thesis Competition, which challenged graduate students and postdocs to clearly and engagingly present their research to a diverse panel of judges - in 3 minutes or less using only 1 slide!  The judging panel included Yale GSAS Dean Lynn Cooley, Yale Vice President of Communications Eileen O’Connor, journalist and producer Kyle Gibson, and Yale Deputy Director of University Corporate and Foundation Relations and author Angelika Hofmann.  

Graduate students enhanced their research this summer with history-related activities. Students were asked: What history-related activities did you do this summer? Did you discover anything particularly interesting (in the archives or the field), or gain any new insights into your work?

The dominant narrative about the Uniform Civil Code in the Constituent Assembly describes it as a compromise between equality and pluralism. While women members like Hansa Mehta and liberal egalitarians like Ambedkar advocated for state reform of family law, Muslim conservatives argued that this would impede their religious freedom. Muslim League members within the Constituent Assembly proposed amendments to exclude “personal law of the community” from the operation of the Uniform Civil Code.