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History Faculty

Dr. Keith Alexander
Title	Associate Professor of History
Email	kalexand@shepherd.edu ( Email )
Phone	304-876-5335
Modern Germany, Modern Europe, Environmental History, Historic Preservation, Oral History, History and Culture of Cuba Ph.D., University of Maryland M.A., University of Maryland B.A., Penn State University Dr. Alexander’s research interests include the history of the German Green Party, green historic preservation, and service learning in historic preservation education. He teaches classes in architectural history, oral history, modern history, and historic preservation. In the field of German history, he has published an article in German Politics and Society, and contributed chapters to Mauerkrieger and Jahrbuch des Archivs Grünes Gedächtnis. In the field of historic preservation, he has published an article on service learning and cemetery preservation in Preservation Education and Research Journal. His most recent projects include examining Senator Robert Byrd’s role in fostering historic preservation in West Virginia, as well as exploring historic preservation and architecture in Cuba. Along with Dr. Sandy, Dr. Alexander co-directs the Historic Preservation and Public History concentration within the history major.

Dr. Benjamin Bankhurst
Title	Ray and Madeline Johnston Chair in American History
Email	bbankhur@shepherd.edu ( Email )
Office	115C Knutti Hall
Colonial and Revolutionary North America, Appalachian History and Culture, Atlantic History, Ireland and the Irish Diaspora Ph.D., King’s College, University of London M.A., King’s College, University of London B.A., University of New Mexico Dr. Bankhurst’s research focuses on migration to the Appalachian frontier in the colonial and revolutionary periods. Before Joining the History Department at Shepherd, Dr. Bankhurst held teaching and research appointments at the London School of Economics; the Institute of Historical Research; and Queen Mary, University of London. His articles have appeared in the Pennsylvania Magazine for History and Biography, The Journal of Irish and Scottish Studies, and Eire/Ireland. The American Council for Irish Studies awarded his first book Ulster Presbyterians and the Scots Irish Diaspora, 1750-1763 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) the Donald Murphy Prize. Bankhurst coedited a collection of essays alongside Nigel Aston entitled Negotiating Toleration: Dissent and the Hanoverian Succession, 1714-1769 (Oxford University Press, 2019). Dr. Bankhurst is the Co-Director of the Maryland Loyalism Project , a public archive and database documenting the experiences of Chesapeake Loyalists in the Era of the American Revolution.

Dr. Sally Brasher
Title	Professor of History
Email	sbrasher@shepherd.edu ( Email )
Phone	304-876-5258
Medieval and Early Modern Europe, History of Italy, Renaissance and Reformation, Gender History Ph.D., The Catholic University of America M.A., Minnesota State University B.A., University of Colorado Author of the book Women of the Humiliati: A Lay Religious Order in Medieval Civic Life (Routledge Press, 2003) and two articles, “The Humiliati” in Women and Gender in the Medieval Europe: An Encyclopedia (New York: Routledge Press: 2006) and “Towards a New Understanding of Medieval Women’s Religiosity: The Humiliati and Beguine Movements Compared” in Magistra: A Journal of Women’s Spirituality in the Middle Ages (Winter 2005) Dr. Brasher’s research interests revolve around the development of urban identities in the Middle Ages and their expression in novel religious institutions. Her manuscript, Hospitals and charity: Religious culture and civic life in medieval northern Italy (Manchester University Press, 2017).

Dr. James Broomall
Title	Associate Director and Director of the Robert C. Byrd Center and the GTM Civil War Center
Email	jbroomal@shepherd.edu ( Email )
Phone	304-876-5429
Civil War and Reconstruction, Southern History, Cultural History Ph.D., University of Florida M.A., University of North Carolina at Greensboro B.A., University of Delaware With an abiding passion for the Civil War-era, Professor Broomall has worked in diverse environments ranging from academic institutions to local museums, and developed courses, conferences, and programs of interpretation focusing on the experiences of civilians, soldiers, and slaves during the mid-Nineteenth Century. Broomall’s scholarship is dedicated to the Civil War-era. He most recently published Private Confederacies: The Emotional Worlds of Southern Men as Citizens and Soldiers as part of the University of North Carolina Press’s Civil War America series. Further, along with William A. Link, Broomall published an edited collection Rethinking American Emancipation: Legacies of Slavery and the Quest for Black Freedom (2016, Cambridge University Press). He has articles in Civil War History, Civil War Times, The Journal of the Civil War Era, and the edited volume, Creating Citizenship in the Nineteenth-Century South in addition to historiographical essays, book reviews, and online essays. Broomall has also completed for the National Park Service and the Organization of American Historians a study of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal during the American Civil War, which is being used for interpretative programs, online materials, and a brochure. He is, moreover, finalizing a report on race and slavery in the Shenandoah Valley for Cedar Creek and Belle Grove National Historical Park. He is currently working on a new book project, Battle Pieces: The Imagery and Artifacts of the Civil War, which explores visual representations of death and violence during the era of the American Civil War. He currently resides in Shepherdstown with his wife Tish and their children Simon, Henry, and Addy.

Dr. David Gordon
Title	Professor of History
Email	dgordon@shepherd.edu ( Email )
Phone	304-876-5277
Modern East Asia, Japan, China, Asian Intellectual history Ph.D., University of Hawai’i at Manoa B.A., Indiana University Dr. Gordon’s experience teaching world history at Shepherd has prompted his interest in comparing Asian and non-Asian figures, as when he composed an article for Comparative Civilizations Review regarding the ideas of Japanese philosopher Watsuji Tetsuro and Nigerian playwright Wole Soyinka, respectively. His Sun Yatsen: Seeking a Newer China was published in July 2009 as a volume in Prentice Hall’s Library of World Biography series for world history courses. He has written several biographical essays for Education About Asia, a journal for educators seeking to increase Asia-related content in their courses. At present he is working on a comparison of the circumstances and policies of the Allied occupations of Japan and Germany, respectively, following World War II.

Dr. Julia Sandy
Title	Associate Professor of History
Email	jsandyba@shepherd.edu ( Email )
Phone	304-876-5329
Modern American History, Civil Rights Movement, American Women’s History, Public History Ph.D., University of Massachusetts Amherst B.A., University of Virginia Dr. Sandy’s research interests focus on the history of social and political movements, especially the northern civil rights movement. Her articles and reviews have appeared in Breaking the Wave: Women, Their Organizations, and Feminism, 1945-1985 (Routledge Press, 2010), and The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History (Oxford University Press, 2007). She is currently working on a book manuscript about the black freedom movement in New York City, which examines consumer rights and activism as part of that movement. Dr. Sandy is also Co-Director of the Historic Preservation and Public History program at Shepherd, and her public history work includes new media, oral history, history education, and local history.

Dr. Anders Henriksson
Title	Professor Emeritus
Email	ahenriks@shepherd.edu ( Email )
Phone	304-876-5329
Ph.D., University of Toronto M.A., University of Toronto B.A., University of Rochester Russia, Modern Europe, Women’s History, Medieval England, World War I Dr. Henriksson is author of Vassals and Citizens: The Baltic Germans in Constitutional Russia, 1905-1914 and The Tsar’s Loyal Germans: The Riga German Community: Social Change and the Nationality Question, 1855-1905. He is a co-author of The City in Late Imperial Russia and has published articles in Russian Review, Canadian Slavonic Papers, The Journal of Baltic Studies, and The Wilson Quarterly. His research interests focus on the role of class, ethnicity, and gender in modern Russia and Eastern Europe. He is currently at work on a collaborative study of the global political, social, economic, and cultural impact of the First World War. Also a chronicler of the humorous side of campus life, Dr. Henriksson is compiler of Non Campus Mentis: World History According to College Students and College in a Nutskull.