College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences Newsletter for Alums
Spring 2025
In this issue:
Class News and Updates
Caroline Bancroft History Prize
Director of the UIS Center for Lincoln Studies Jacob Friefeld earns the Caroline Bancroft History Prize from the Denver Public Library Special Collections and Archives for co-authoring the book The First Migrants: How Black Homesteaders' Quest for Land and Freedom Heralded America's Great Migration with Richard Edwards. The book looks at the migration of Black homesteaders to the Great Plains from 1877 to 1920.
Mid-America Emmy Award
"Music of Hope," a short film featuring UIS Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology Yona Stamatis and produced by UIS doctoral student Julie Staley, won a Mid-America Emmy Award in the Historical/Cultural Short Form Content category in the fall. The film tells the stories of Jewish musicians in the Holocaust who had their instruments seized by the Nazis. Stamatis, a third-generation Holocaust survivor, shares her family鈥檚 story during that time.
Stamatis鈥檚 grandfather and great-grandparents lived in Germany during the Second World War. The son鈥檚 parents had secured a visa for their son to move to the United States, but they were then sent to Auschwitz. Before being sent to the camp, they made sure to bury their possessions鈥搃ncluding their son鈥檚 violin鈥搃n hopes that one day they would be recovered after the war. Years later, the violin was found and sent to Stamatis鈥檚 grandfather in the United States.
Staley鈥檚 film sought to inspire peace, empathy, and unity across different cultures and identities by appealing to our common humanity, especially during times of great conflict and division.
ECCE History 486 & the Ilinois State Museum
Dr. Peter Shapinsky of the UIS History Department and his class, who attended the ECCE HIS 486, worked with the Illinois State Museum to observe and analyze various objects from Japan and China's Early Modern and Modern eras. The depicts how objects convey the owners' cultural ideas and individual self-expressions.
Running to Home, Kathleen Supov茅
Contemporary music pianist Kathleen Supov茅 performed at the Performing Arts Center on Saturday, February 22nd. Her performance, Running to Home, was a compilation of works by a handful of composers, including herself, Randall Woolf, Tom Flaherty, Mary Kouyoumdjian, and Rahilia Hasanova.
Her compilation of works was inspired by themes of migration, running, movement, and home. Supov茅鈥檚 two pieces in her compilation鈥�"Nautical Twilight" (2024) and "Lavender Lake"(2024)鈥揹emonstrate elements of her experimental style.
For example, in "Nautical Twilight," Supov茅 uses a fan strapped to a board cut to a size where it simultaneously hits the same distance of keys. The fan lightly grazes the key strings to create a unique, droning 鈥渋ndustrial sound.鈥� Supov茅鈥檚 performance was highly experimental and cinematic, always keeping the audience on their toes.
Ta-Nehisi Coates Panel
On March 3rd, the UIS Center for Lincoln Studies and the UIS Departments of History, English, and Sociology/Anthropology held a panel at the Lincoln Library discussing and expanding on Ta-Nehisi Coates鈥檚 newly released book The Message. Dr. Lesa Johnson, Kristi Barnwell, Neeraj Rajasekar, and Akash Belsare dove into the book鈥檚 themes of whiteness and supremacy, the social construction of race, imperialism, and power, especially in how it relates to Palestinian and African American history and contemporary social issues.
Poetry Reading With Felicia Zamora
Poet, educator, and editor Felicia Zamora spoke at UIS on Thursday, April 10th, to talk about her recently published book Interstitial Archeology, which mainly focuses on Zamora鈥檚 childhood growing up as a biracial woman in a motel with a family of four. In鈥淢editations on Ghosts,鈥� she pretends to speak to feminist poet and scholar Gloria Anzaldua about her fears. She reflects on vague and difficult memories about people in her life, such as her grandfather and father. Furthermore, in 鈥淴ibalba Holes,鈥� she incorporates Meso-American history and mythology, reflecting on death and the holes in her lineage and personal history. Zamora鈥檚 poetry reading explored themes of comfort, fear, risk, the family, and the self, often utilizing supernatural elements and mythology, to emphasize that 鈥渃omfort is earned鈥� and it is something that only happens once you walk into the unknown.
Alum Spotlight
Adam Krall
Adam Krall, a 2024 graduate with a Master's in History, has recently begun working for the State of Illinois鈥檚 Historic Sites in Springfield as a Historic Site Interpreter, a rare and competitive opportunity he considers a lucky find. As an interpreter, he provides the public with tours鈥搘hether that鈥檚 field trips, individual or group tours鈥揳nd when he鈥檚 not presenting, Krall dedicates his time to proposing new programs and conducting historical research.
Adam is motivated to move forward in his career. He aspires to continue doing his best for the State of Illinois so that he may eventually become an Illinois State Historian who can help other site interpreters understand their programs on Illinois and Civil War History.
Adam also has a book in the works that he hopes to publish soon about Leroy Key: a Mississippian who came from a slave-owning family that came to Illinois to fight for the Union, lead a band of Union men against Union raiders who were wreaking havoc within the Confederate prison, and, after the war, returned to Mississippi to provide support to the recently emancipated African-American community during the period of Reconstruction.
Adam shares that one of his biggest supporters was his family as he was pursuing his degrees. After high school, Adam joined the workforce and worked with heavy machinery before he eventually returned to school. Throughout his entire academic journey, he says that his family always instilled in him the idea that school would always be there waiting for him until he was ready. Additionally, Adam also shares that the UIS History Department supported him throughout his studies. He expresses that the Department was filled with high-quality knowledge where the faculty have a deeper connection with their students that doesn鈥檛 cease at the end of class. One of the classes Adam attended, Dr. Owen鈥檚 Media Class, allowed him to test his desire of starting a fun and comedic podcast (while still preserving the research aspect) that he still runs today鈥揟he Civil Weird鈥搘hich chronicles the stories of various obscure figures and battles of the American Civil War, such as Leroy Key. He says the support he received from the Department and his professors helped put him on the path to his career and gave him confidence in himself.
It鈥檚 the most I鈥檝e ever learned in my long tenure of going to colleges鈥�
Jason McCormick