October 2023 Newsletter
Welcome to the second CHA newsletter of the year!!
We are proud of all of you for making it almost all the way through midterms, and we are rooting for those of you who have gotten sick over the past few stressful weeks! Rest up and watch some cheesy historical films for me! (it's totally studying if its at least 25 percent historically accurate, right?)
If you haven't gotten our newsletter before, the CHA hosts a variety of events on campus throughout the year for anyone interested in history. These events include midterm and finals study breaks, panel discussions with distinguished professors, and our fantastic peer mentoring program! This newsletter will also include suggestions for events related to history taking place in the city!
If you know of a history events to include in the next newsletter or a history fact that us Columbia history nerds need to see, please submit them to the google form below and they might appear in the next newsletter!
Suggestions for the CHA Newsletter!
CHS GS/Transfer Event!
The purpose of the Plan of Study and Transfer Credit Event, hosted by Transfer & GS Coordinator Sophia Sanico, is to bring together newly declared or prospective history majors, whether they be underclassmen or transfer students, to gain information on completing the necessary requirements needed for their history declaration.
The first half will be a short presentation on the History department Plan of Study Form (a required form for declaring your major/minor). We will go over the process of choosing a specialization, selecting courses, the differences between lectures and seminars, and finding an UNDED advisor. The CHA members present will be able to give their advice on their own experiences selecting courses and specializations. We will also go over the Transfer Credit form, for transfer or Dual BA students who have history credits from separate universities.
It will be next Monday (10/30), from 7-8pm in FAY 411.
No RSVP necessary!
Professor Lunch Survey!
Please fill out this form (which is non-binding!) if you are interested in attending a CHA professor lunch this semester. We will be in touch based on form responses to confirm.
CHA faculty lunches (which used to run pre-COVID) allowed history undergraduates to meet faculty members in a more casual, informal setting: five students would be chosen to meet with a faculty member for lunch, paid for by the department.
This form is to gauge interest in which faculty members CHA members would like us to arrange for a lunch with; based on responses, we'll be in touch with interested students to confirm! You do not have to have taken classes with the professor(s) you list below—they can be anyone in the department (not currently on leave) who you'd like to get to know more informally.
The form closes EOD this Wednesday, 10/25 so make sure to fill it out by then if you are interested!
If you have any questions, please contact CHA Chair Mrinalini (mw2706@columbia.edu) and Vice Chair Kay (krz2110@columbia.edu).
Peer Mentor Advice Panel!
Come and get advice from older students on history classes and schedules! We know that choosing classes can be confusing (especially with this new system!) and it can be hard to tell which professors' classes to take from scanty and often outdated CULPA profiles! Make it easier on yourself and learn from our mistakes!
Happening November 14th from 7-8pm in FAY 411, no RSVP necessary
Finals Study Break!
We know you don't want to even think about finals yet, but midterms are almost over and there's no time like the present to start stressing about finals!
On December 12 from 2-3pm, stop by Fayerweather 411 for a quick study break and some yummy snacks, no sign up necessary! We hope that you will be able to join us for at least a little bit and maybe feel a bit less stressed as you take a break from all of that intense studying you (probably) will have been doing. Press the pause button for a second and have some snacks to fuel you for your next exam! You got this!
History Events in the City
New York City is one of the best cities in the world to visit museums and see other historical events! We live here nine months of the year, so we might as well take advantage of it!
(Don't forget that students get free admission to almost every museum in NYC!)
The Bronx Museum: "Michael Richards: Are You Down?"
This is the first museum retrospective of Michael Richards’s visionary artworks, exhibiting the sculptures, drawings, installations, and video work he created during a prolific decade between 1990 and 2001.
Of Jamaican and Costa Rican lineage, Richards was born in Brooklyn in 1963, and raised in Kingston, Jamaica. Integral to a generation of Black artists emerging in the 1990s, Richards’s artwork gestures toward both repression and reprieve from social injustices and the simultaneous possibilities of uplift and downfall, often in the context of the historic and ongoing oppression of Black people.
Flight and aviation were central themes for Richards as an exploration of freedom and escape, ascendance and descent. These themes are especially evident in Richards’s engagement with the legacy of the Tuskegee Airmen, Greek mythology, Christianity, and African and African American folklore. Centering his own experience, Richards used his body to cast the figures for his sculptures, which often appear as pilots, saints, or both.
Tragically, Richards passed away on September 11, 2001 while working in his Lower Manhattan Cultural Council World Views studio on the 92nd floor of World Trade Center, Tower One. At age 38, Richards was an emerging artist whose incisive aesthetic held immense promise to make him a leading figure in contemporary art.
Inextricably connected to the moment of its making in the 1990s, Richards’s work engaging Blackness, flight, diaspora, spirituality, police brutality, and monuments remains timely and resonant decades after its creation.
The American Folk Art Museum: "What That Quilt Knows About Me"
This exhibit explores the deeply personal and emotional power associated with the experience of making and living with quilts. The exhibition’s title conveys the idea that quilts have the capacity for “knowing” or containing information about the human experience. Reflecting on this sentiment, the exhibition presents quilts as collections of intimate stories.
Spanning from the 19th through 21st centuries, the works on view will reveal a range of poignant and sometimes unexpected biographies. From a pair of enslaved sisters in antebellum Kentucky to a convalescent British soldier during the Crimean War, the exhibition explores stories associated with both the makers and recipients of the works.
The exhibition also explores how artists have continually drawn inspiration from and pushed the boundaries of quilt-making to incorporate surprising materials and ideas, inviting audiences to consider these objects as archives of personal human experiences.
Closing October 29th, 2023 so go see it before its gone!
The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Manet/Degas
This exhibition examines one of the most significant artistic dialogues in modern art history: the close and sometimes tumultuous relationship between Édouard Manet and Edgar Degas. Born only two years apart, Manet (1832–1883) and Degas (1834–1917) were friends, rivals, and, at times, antagonists who worked to define modern painting in France. By examining their careers in parallel and presenting their work side by side, this exhibition investigates how their artistic objectives and approaches both overlapped and diverged.
Through more than 160 paintings and works on paper, Manet/Degas takes a fresh look at the interactions of these two artists in the context of the family relationships, friendships, and intellectual circles that influenced their artistic and professional choices, deepening our understanding of a key moment in nineteenth-century French painting.
Columbia Historical Fun Fact!
Did you know...
Columbia was the first school in the US to grant the M.D. degree.
And...
The FM radio was invented in Philosophy Hall by Edwin Armstrong, class of 1913.
Meet the new Team!
Chair: Mrinalini Sisodia Wadhwa CC'24
Vice Chair: Kay Zou CC'25
Treasurer: Janus Yuen CC'25
Outreach & Marketing Coordinators: Tymesha-Elizabeth Kindell CC'24, Tenley Roberson CC'24, Kira Ratan CC'26, Belan Yeshigeta CC'26
Transfer/ GS Coordinator: Sophia Sanico CC'24
Mentorship Coordinator: Megan Meyerson CC'24
Newsletter Written by: Tenley Roberson
