Faculty

Regular Faculty

Michael Gasper headshot

Michael Gasper, Chair

Associate Professor, History
B.A., Temple University; M.A., Ph.D., New York University
Michael Gasper teaches courses on the History of the Modern Middle East and North Africa, the History of the Ottoman Empire and the History of Islam and the Muslim World.
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Professor Alexander Day

Alexander F. Day

Professor, History & Asian Studies
B.A. Colby College; M.A., Ph.D. UC Santa Cruz
Alexander Day studies the intellectual, social, and cultural history of peasants, food, and agrarian change in China. He teaches Chinese, East Asian, and world history. Read his Oxy Story profile.
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Professor Sharla Fett

Sharla Fett

Robert Glass Cleland Professor in American History
B.A., Carleton College; M.A., Stanford University; Ph.D., Rutgers University
Sharla Fett teaches courses on early U.S. and African American history, including the Atlantic World, Slavery and the Antebellum South, U.S. Women’s History, and Collective Memory and Slavery’s Legacies. Read her Oxy Story profile.
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Jane Hong

Jane Hong

Associate Professor, History
B.A. Yale University; A.M., Brown University; A.M., Ph.D., Harvard University
Jane Hong is a historian of U.S. immigration and engagement with the world, with a focus on Asia after World War II. 
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Professor Lisa Sousa

Lisa Sousa

Norman Bridge Professor, History
B.A., M.A., Ph.D., UCLA
Sousa specializes in the histories of colonial Latin America, indigenous peoples and languages of Mexico, and women, gender and sexuality.
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Head shot of Professor Marla Stone

Marla Stone

Professor, History
B.A., Pomona College; M.A., Ph.D., Princeton University
A specialist in the history of fascism, dictatorship and genocide in the Europe, Marla Stone's work emphasizes the relationship among culture, politics, and the state in the 20th century.
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Jonathan Veitch

Professor of History
B.A., Stanford University; M.A., Harvard University; Ph.D., Harvard University
Prior to Occidental, he taught for four years in the English department at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, then joined The New School in New York City. As an associate professor of literature…
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Non-Tenure Track Faculty

Damon Akins

Damon Akins

Ray Allen Billington Visiting Professor (2024-2025), History
B.A. Oklahoma City University; M.A. University of California, Los Angeles; Ph.D. University of Oklahoma
Occidental College and the Huntington Library co-founded the Ray Allen Billington Visiting Professorship in United States History. The Billington Visiting Professorship has brought some of the country's leading historians to Occidental.
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Christine Grant headshot

Christine Grant

Visiting Assistant Professor, History
B.A., University of Bradford; M.A., West Virginia University; Ph.D., Carnegie Mellon University
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Affiliated Faculty

Professor Erica Ball

Erica Ball

Professor of Black Studies
B.A., Wesleyan University; M.A., Ph.D., The Graduate Center, City University of New York
Erica L. Ball is a historian who specializes in nineteenth and twentieth-century African American history.
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Professor Xiao-huang Yin

Xiao-huang Yin

Professor, American Studies
B.A., Nanjing University; M.A., Ph.D., Harvard University
Xiao-huang Yin specializes in Asian American studies, U.S.-Asia relations, and modern China.
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Emeriti/ae Faculty

Headshot of Professor Nina Gelbart
Nina Gelbart
Professor, History; Anita Johnson Wand Professor of Women's Studies, Emerita (1981-2023)
History
gelbart@oxy.edu

Nina Gelbart was Professor of History and Anita Johnson Wand Professor of Women's Studies at Oxy.
Wellington K. K. Chan
National Endowment for the Humanities Distinguished Professor of the Humanities, History, Emeritus (1971-2010)
History
wkchan@oxy.edu

Chan has published extensively on the socioeconomic history of modern China in various academic presses and journals.
Lynn Dumenil
Robert Glass Cleland Professor of American History, Emerita (1991-2014)
History
dumenil@oxy.edu

Dumenil's emphasis is cultural, political and social history of 20th century America. 

Maryann Horowitz headshot black sweater blue turtleneck
Maryanne Horowitz
Professor of History, Emerita (1973-2024)
History
horowitz@oxy.edu

Cultural historian Maryanne Horowitz teaches courses on Rise, Fall and Rebirth: Europe since the Enlightenment; Humanities from the Renaissance to the Present; Europe and the Middle East from Antiquity to 1700; Ancient Athens and Renaissance Florence, and Renaissance to Revolution! She welcomes...

Contact History
Swan Hall 112
Phone: (323) 259-2751
Fax: (323) 341-4977
history@oxy.edu

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