Professor McElya’s 2026 book Liberation Summer, about a key moment in the women’s liberation movement surrounding the 1968 Miss America pageant and the reactions and protests it was surrounded by, has been widely recommended by the New York Times, the Boston Globe and Kirk’s reviews. Her last book about the history of Arlington National Cemetery was a finalist for the Pulitzer.

The Nonfiction Everyone Will Be Reading This Summer – The New York Times

75 favorite books and best summer reads to check out this season

Micki McElya | Kirkus Reviews

Prof. Manisha Sinha recently published a piece in Ms. Magazine on the abolitionist origins of American feminism, discussing the intersection of the abolitionism and women’s rights movements during the nineteenth century.

Read the piece here.

The article, written by Ananya Roy for Jewish Currents, contextualizes the current immigration “enforcement” crisis among historical moments that shaped laws now serving as the backdrop for the criminalization of racialized migrant communities. One of the key moments which demonstrates the article’s emphasis on communities creating their own networks and momentum towards freedom rather than states or cities fostering and protecting this freedom as its own mission, is of course that of the Abolition Movement and the Underground Railroad. Sinha’s article “The Abolitionist Underground” is cited amongst other scholarly work evidencing how governments respond to freedom movements rather than being the agents enabling and protecting residents as many are taught to understand historical narratives around individual freedoms being codified.

Read Fugitive Sanctuaries by Ananya Roy

Read The Abolitionist Underground by Manisha Sinha

On November 5, 2025, Professor Brendan Kane presented a research seminar titled “Teaching, learning and researching Early Modern Gaelic in a digital age: Léamh.org and the practice of collaborative digital humanities.” The event was hosted at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, a college in the west of Scotland. The talk discussed ongoing efforts to teach people Early Modern Irish and Classical Gaelic, using the innovative Léamh.org, a web tool that uses games and other methods to assist users in learning grammar and reading digitized manuscripts. 

You can watch a recording of the talk here