Faculty

Regular Faculty

Marla Stone, Chair

Professor, History

B.A., Pomona College; M.A., Ph.D., Princeton University

A specialist in the history of fascism, dictatorship and genocide in the Europe, Marla Stone's work emphasizes the relationship among culture, politics, and the state in the 20th century.

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Alexander F. Day

Professor, History & Asian Studies

B.A. Colby College; M.A., Ph.D. UC Santa Cruz

Alexander Day studies the intellectual, social, and cultural history of peasants, food, and agrarian change in China. He teaches Chinese, East Asian, and world history. Read his �ձ�� Story profile.

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Sharla Fett

Robert Glass Cleland Professor in American History

B.A., Carleton College; M.A., Stanford University; Ph.D., Rutgers University

Sharla Fett teaches courses on early U.S. and African American history, including the Atlantic World, Slavery and the Antebellum South, U.S. Women’s History, and Collective Memory and Slavery’s Legacies. Read her �ձ�� Story profile.

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Margaret Gaida

Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, History

B.A. Duke University; M.A. University of California, San Diego; M.A., Ph.D. University of Oklahoma

Margaret Gaida is a historian of science whose research explores cross-cultural knowledge transmission in the medieval Mediterranean, with a particular focus on astronomy, astrology, optics, and magic.

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Michael Gasper

Associate Professor, History

B.A., Temple University; M.A., Ph.D., New York University

Michael Gasper teaches courses on the History of the Modern Middle East and North Africa, the History of the Ottoman Empire and the History of Islam and the Muslim World.

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Jane Hong

Associate Professor, History

B.A. Yale University; A.M., Brown University; A.M., Ph.D., Harvard University

Jane Hong is a historian of U.S. immigration and engagement with the world, with a focus on Asia after World War II.

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Lisa Sousa

Norman Bridge Professor, History

B.A., M.A., Ph.D., UCLA

Sousa specializes in the histories of colonial Latin America, indigenous peoples and languages of Mexico, and women, gender and sexuality.

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Jonathan Veitch

Professor of History

B.A., Stanford University; M.A., Harvard University; Ph.D., Harvard University

Prior to Occidental, he taught for four years in the English department at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, then joined The New School in New York City. As an associate professor of literature…

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Non-Tenure Track Faculty

Chelsie May

Visiting Assistant Professor, Religious Studies & History

B.A., University of California, Los Angeles; M.A., Brandeis; Ph.D., University of Chicago

Areas of Specialization: SWANA Jewish history; Relations between SWANA Jews and other communities of color; diversity in Jewish identities and history.

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Jack Wilson

Visiting Assistant Professor, History

B.A. University of California, Santa Cruz; M.A. Columbia University; Ph.D. University of California, Los Angeles

Jack Wilson received his PhD in Japanese History from the Department of History at UCLA in March of 2025. His dissertation examines the relationship of poetics, philosophy, and politics through an in depth study of the postwar poetry group the Waste Land (Arechi). Research interests include modernism, critical theory, and psychoanalysis.

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