Class of 2020 Virtual Graduation

Virtual Graduation: Class of 2020

While we cannot gather in person, we want to take today, May 20th, to celebrate the work and great achievements of the Class of 2020. 

Included here is a digital version of the commemorative commencement scroll that Department Chair, Peter Zinoman would have handed to you during our ceremony.  We know that a digital celebration cannot replace a Commencement Ceremony​, and we hope that you will join ​u​s in-person once a formal ceremony is possible. Today, we ask you to join us in ​marking this momentous occasion, and ​celebrating this huge feat: you have graduated from the UC Berkeley History Department. Congratulations, Class of 2020! 

The content below is a collection of recorded remarks to celebrate you. To best enjoy these videos, play each video in Fullscreen mode, and make sure the video quality settings are at the highest setting. 

"My colleagues and I stand in awe of your smarts, your skill, your savvy and your grit. And it gives us some sense of hope to know that the future lies in your capable hands."

Peter Zinoman, Department Chair

Virtual Yearbook: Class of 2020

Class of 2020 Graduation

Digital Yearbook

The 2020 Digital Yearbook is a project in process, created via photo submissions from the undergraduate Class of 2020. It does not account for the entire Class of 2020, but we hope that more students will submit their photos for inclusion. The final edition will be sent out with the Summer Newsletter. View the Yearbook video in Fullscreen mode, or click this box to access the high quality PDF.

Department Chair Remarks: Peter Zinoman

Zinoman Chairs Speech FINAL

Undergraduate Speaker: Geraint Hughes

Undergraduate Speech: Geraint Hughes

"May you maintain that 2020 vision for the rest of your lives and may you bring it to a world that desperately needs it, and eagerly awaits you."

Mark Brilliant, Associate Professor

Faculty Remarks to the Class of 2020

Faculty Remarks, Class of 2020

Ph.D. Speaker: Daniel Roddy

Ph.D. Speaker: Daniel Roddy

2020 Ph.D. Candidates

The most recent list of winners of departmental awards is listed here. 

Matthew August Berry  

Dissertation advisor: Wen-hsin Yeh   

“Confucian Terrorism: Phan Bội Châu and the Imagining of Modern Vietnam”      

Christopher M. Blunda 

Dissertation advisor: Susanna Elm      

“Origenism in the Western "Desert": Gennadius, Salvian, and the Making of Western Asceticism”


Anthony L. Gregory

Dissertation advisor: Rebecca McLennan 

“From War on Crime to Liberal Security State: The New Deal and American Political Legitimacy” 

Christopher Lawson        

Dissertation advisor: James Vernon   

“Nothing Left but Smoke and Mirrors: Deindustrialisation and the Remaking of British Communities, 1957-1994”

Kevin Li 

Dissertation advisor: Peter Zinoman

"Entrepreneurs of Disorder: The Binh Xuyen and the Decolonization of Vietnam"

Adam Littlestone-Luria  

Dissertation advisor: Carlos Noreña  

“Community and Capital: The Aristocratic System of Power in the Age of Cicero"  


Peiting C. Li

Dissertation advisor: Wen-hsin Yeh   

“The Alchemy of Medicine: Making Doctors, Knowledge, and Drugs in Treaty-Port Shanghai, 1915-1927”

Talia Di Manno     

Dissertation advisor: Tom Dandelet   

“Christian Archaeology and the Invention of the Early Church in Rome, 1561-1636”           


Francisco Martin del Campo 

Dissertation advisor: Waldo E. Martin

"The Latina Jacobins: Marxist Leninist Latina Women, Industrial Unions, and the Fall of Labor in the Southwest"

Joy Neumeyer        

Dissertation advisor: Yuri Slezkine     

“Dying Empire: Visions of the End in Late Socialism”      

Ryan Nelson           

Dissertation advisor: Peter Zinoman  

“South Vietnam's Awakening: A Novel Developmental History, 1963 to 1967”          

Derek Kane O'Leary         

Dissertation advisor: Mark Peterson  

“Building the American Archive in the Atlantic World, 1791-1869”       

Sebastian Peel       

Dissertation advisor: Mary Elizabeth Berry  

“From Open to Closed in Three Generations: State Formation and Early Modernity in the Early Tokugawa Period”         

Loan Chau Pham  

Dissertation advisors: Peter Zinoman; Daniel Sargent      

“Going Global: The International Relations of the People’s Army of Vietnam during the Indochina Wars, 1930-1964”       

Daniel Roddy         

Dissertation advisor: Thomas Dandelet        

"Forging Royal Bonds: Dynastic Logic, Reason of State, and Marriage Diplomacy under the Spanish Habsburgs, 1526-1660"           

Franklin Sammons           

Dissertation advisors: Brian DeLay; Mark Peterson           

“Yazoo’s Settlement: Finance, Law, and Dispossession in the Southeastern Borderlands, 1789-1820”

Sarah Elizabeth Stoller   

Dissertation advisor: James Vernon   

"Inventing the Working Parent: Work, Gender, and Feminism in Neoliberal Britain"          

Brandon Kirk Williams   

Dissertation advisor: Daniel Sargent  

“The Will to Develop Isn’t Enough: The International Labor Organization, Indonesia, and India in Decades of Cold War and Development”