UWM’s History Department’s Student Accolades
Many of our graduate students have been recognized for their outstanding efforts and we want to celebrate those accomplishments:
Sadique Oddoye, current MA student, will be attending the PhD program in African History at the University of Miami. Congratulations Sadique!
Patrick Hall, PhD student in History with a Public History minor, successfully defended his doctoral dissertation, “Generational Remix: Restorative Amplification in Sansei and Yonsei Interpretations of the Japanese American Incarceration.” Great job, Patrick!
Three of our PhD students, Jim Olmsted, Ken Bartelt and Matilda Ansah, have all been accepted as “OLLI Scholars” for the 2026-2027 academic year. The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute offers classes for students in the Milwaukee area. They have raised funds for a great opportunity for UWM’s graduate students to offer classes based on their research. OLLI Scholars receive mentoring about their presentations, teach a class, and are also provided a stipend. Very impressive!
Vitalis Nwashindu has been honored with the Distinguished Dissertation Fellowship for the 2026-2027 academic year. This incredibly competitive fellowship recognizes Vitalis’ hard work and dedication to our program and the University. Well done and well deserved!
Student Spotlight: Frischa Aswarini Selected for International Feminist Learning Program
The Department of History at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee is proud to highlight PhD student Frischa Aswarini, for her participation in Sekolah Pemikiran Perempuan (SPP) – The School of Women’s Thought, an international initiative dedicated to amplifying women’s voices and knowledge.
The semester-long program, which runs from February 7 through June 6, 2026, brings together scholars, activists, and artists from around the world through weekly online seminars. The program centers feminist and decolonial perspectives, with sessions led by Indonesian academics teaching in universities across the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, and Asia, as well as activists and artists based in Indonesia and throughout the global diaspora.
SPP focuses on challenging knowledge systems that have historically marginalized or excluded women’s contributions. Using a decolonial approach, the initiative encourages participants to explore feminist scholarship while highlighting the intellectual traditions and perspectives of Indonesian women.
The seminar series is divided into two modules. The first explores topics such as women of color feminism, intersectional feminism, transnational feminism, and decolonial feminist theory. The second module focuses specifically on Indonesian women’s thought, bringing attention to intellectual traditions and perspectives that are often underrepresented in global academic discourse.
In addition to attending the seminars, Frischa is collaborating with a small group of participants to create a final project highlighting the work and ideas of an Indonesian woman thinker. These projects may take the form of written work, audio, video, or visual storytelling and will be published on the organization’s website as part of its broader effort to expand access to learning materials about women’s thought in the Indonesian language.
Frischa’s participation in the program connects closely to her doctoral research at UWM. Her work focuses on the environmental history of Indonesia, and she is particularly interested in exploring how Indonesian women’s perspectives and activism intersect with environmental issues and social change.
“I’m excited to learn more about Indonesian women’s thoughts and works, especially those connected to environmental issues,” Frischa said. “This opportunity feels especially meaningful as I continue my research on the environmental history of Indonesia.”
Following the completion of the seminar program, SPP plans to host a festival in Indonesia this summer that will showcase the work and ideas of Indonesian women through panel discussions, keynote talks, artistic performances, and collaborative events.
The Department of History congratulates Frischa on this achievement and looks forward to seeing how her participation in the program contributes to her research and to broader conversations about feminist thought and global knowledge production.
Successful PhD Defense: Celebrating Kyle Starkey
Kyle Starkey has just earned his PhD in History and we wanted to share his important dissertation information. Congratulations Kyle!
Kyle’s dissertation examines the history and development of the Verband der Heimkehrer (VdH), a West German organization representing former prisoners of war (POWs) from its founding in 1950 to its dissolution in 2006. While previous scholarship has primarily focused on the organization’s political leadership and negotiations with the West German state, this study shifts attention to the micro-level experiences of ordinary members and local branches. It argues that the VdH’s culture, collective memory, and political influence were not solely directed from above by organizational leaders but were actively shaped from below through the participation of Heimkehrer communities across West and reunified Germany.
Using a microhistorical approach, the dissertation demonstrates how local branches contributed to the construction of Heimkehrer identity, memory, and activism while simultaneously supporting broader political campaigns for compensation and recognition. The study also extends existing scholarship beyond the 1960s by analyzing the organization’s later decades, including its transition toward a European orientation in the 1970s, its struggles with generational decline in the 1980s and 1990s, the effects of German reunification, and the challenges posed by changing historical interpretations of the Second World War, particularly following the Wehrmachtsausstellung debates. Ultimately, the dissertation argues that understanding postwar German veteran culture requires attention to grassroots participation and local agency, revealing the VdH as a far more complex organization than previously understood.a career defined by intellectual curiosity, service and dedication.