Throughout history, the interplay of morality and law has proved to be a point of debate and intense interest for philosophers. Specifically, does one concept determine the other? And if so, does law establish what is moral or should it be the other way around? The issue is even more perplexing in modern society, where religion plays a much smaller role than in most other cultures in history. Thomas Cheeseman ’12 is studying the complex philosophical principles regarding law, morality and religion under a Levitt Research Fellowship Grant with Professor of History Doug Ambrose.

The New York Times’ current entry on the publication’s Civil War blog is the work of James L. Ferguson Professor of History Maurice Isserman. Titled “From the Playing Field to the Battlefield,” the article reveals that during the war, the majority of Hamilton students participated on both the Union and Confederate sides and that many perished.

Professor of History Thomas Wilson presented a paper titled “The Imperial and Ancestral Sacrifices of Confucius” at the International Symposium on the Rites to Confucius held at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul, South Korea.

Four members of the Hamilton faculty were recognized for their research and creative successes through the Dean's Scholarly Achievement Awards at Class & Charter Day on Friday, May 6. The awards were established in three categories by former Dean of Faculty Joe Urgo in 2008.

Associate Professor of History Chad Williams has contributed to the website Africana Age.   Developed by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Africana Age is a multimedia resource devoted to tracing the history of African and African diasporic transformations in the 20th century.

Steven Pet ’12 has been awarded a Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History fellowship to attend a one-week program in June in New York City. Pet, a government and history major from New Milford, Conn., is one of 30 college sophomores and juniors to win the annual national award.

Torchbearers of of Democracy: African American Soldiers in the World War I Era by Associate Professor of History Chad L. Williams has been selected by the Organization of American Historians (OAH) for the 2011 Liberty Legacy Foundation Award which is given annually for the best book on any aspect of the struggle for civil rights in the United State. Williams’ book was also selected by the Society for Military History to receive its 2011 Distinguished Book Award for United States History.

February 22 was the 150th anniversary of Jefferson Davis's announcement of the Confederate cabinet and Abraham Lincoln's enunciation of his goals for America at a speech in Philadelphia. It was also the date on which Yale University Professor David Blight visited Hamilton to present a retrospective on American views of the Civil War. By examining a pair of 20th century authors who wrote on the topic, Blight illustrated long-term trends on the way Americans think about the Civil War and the nation.

David W. Blight, the Class of 1954 Professor of American History and director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University, will lecture on Tuesday, Feb. 22, at 7 p.m., in the Hamilton College Chapel. The title of his talk is “The Civil War in Modern Memory: Robert Penn Warren and James Baldwin at the Centennial.” The lecture, sponsored by Hamilton’s History Department, is free and open to the public.