The history department has faculty with expertise in European, Russian, Middle Eastern, African, American, Latin American, and Caribbean History. Our history faculty provide opportunities for students to study in various parts of the world as part of
their major.
Faculty
Timothy Welliver, Ph.D.
Dr. Tim Welliver in an Associate Professor of History with a PhD from Northwestern University where he specialized in African History. Dr. Welliver teaches courses on African history, Middle Eastern history, and Islam. He has also taught many times
in study-abroad courses in Berlin and Istanbul.
Dr. Welliver’s research focuses on twentieth-century Zanzibar.
Fedja Buric, Ph.D.
Dr. Fedja Buric is Associate Professor of History with a PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he specialized in modern Balkan history, and theory of nationalism, with a subfield in Russian history. Dr. Buric teaches courses in
modern Balkans, the Holocaust, a comparative history of genocide, both world wars, history of Russia, and a history of global revolutions.
Dr. Buric's research focuses on the Balkans, motives and dynamics of genocide perpetration, and the role of autobiography in the study of history. His current book project Becoming Mixed: A History of Mixed Marriages in Bosnia analyzes twentieth-century
interethnic marriages in southeastern Europe.
Laura J. Ping, Ph.D.
Dr. Laura Ping is an Assistant Professor of U.S. History with a PhD from The Graduate Center, City University of New York where she specialized in U.S. cultural history, material culture, visual culture, fashion, and gender. Dr. Ping teaches courses on
U.S. immigration, the Long Civil Rights Movement, public health, gender and sexuality, and the U.S. Civil War.
Dr. Ping’s research focuses on women and society. She is the co-author of Catharine Beecher: The Paradoxes of Gender in the Nineteenth Century (2022), which looks at how social and technological changes during the nineteenth-century can be understood
through the life of education reformer Catharine Beecher. Dr. Ping’s current book project. Beyond the Bloomer: Fashioning Change in Nineteenth-Century Dress analyzes how American women used fashion as a political symbol prior to gaining the
right to vote.
Adjunct Faculty
Ryne Clos, Ph.D.
Dr. Ryne Clos is an Adjunct Professor of History with a Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame where he specialized in Modern Latin American History and International Peace Studies.
Dr. Clos teaches courses in modern world history, modern US history, and Latin American history.
His research interests include liberation theology, Central America, revolutionary movements, and experimental pedagogy.
Currently, Dr. Clos also works as Education Lead at Blackacre State Nature Preserve and Historic Homestead in Jeffersontown, Kentucky, developing and teaching environmental and nature-based lessons for students of all ages.
Maria Schumacher, M.A.
Maria Schumacher is an Adjunct Professor of History with an MA from the University of Cincinnati where she specialized in the German Empire. She teaches course spanning late medieval Europe through present world history.
Maria Schumacher’s research interests include the late 19th and early 20th century German Empire, with an emphasis in visual and material culture.
Emeritus & Retired Faculty
Bill M. Donovan, Ph.D., Retired
- Teaching fields: Colonial and Modern Latin America; military and political violence; exploration period; slavery; history of the Jesuits
- Research interests: Brazil and Portugal; Atlantic economic history; comparative business history; early modern social history
- Office: Brown Library 107
- Phone: 502.272.8069
- Email: bdonovan@bellarmine.edu
Robert Pfaadt, M.A., Professor Emeritus
- Teaching fields: Western civilization, modern European, and Russian history
- Research interest: Nazi-Soviet relations, 1939
- Email: rpfaadt@bellarmine.edu