In an era of "don't say gay" laws, Dr. Pippa Holloway, chair of the University of Richmond's Department of History, believes in the relevance and importance of teaching LGBT history to students for what they learn about courts, the Constitution, civil rights, and America as a whole.
Dr. Link joins the History Department in Fall 2025 as the Visiting Cornerstones Chair. He is a scholar of the social and political history of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century U.S. South. He has authored eleven books, most recently The Last Fire-Eater: Roger A. Pryor and the Search for a Southern Identity (2022) and Frank Porter Graham: Southern Liberal, Citizen of the World (2021). His newest book, Jesse Helms: Modern Conservatism and the Politics of Opposition, will be published by UNC Press in 2026.
Dr. Link was a member of the history faculty at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro from 1981 to 2004. While at UNC-G and UF, he taught two current University of Richmond history professors—Dr. Holloway and Dr. Broomall. In 2004, he was named the Richard J. Milbauer Chair in Southern History at the University of Florida, where he taught until his retirement in 2022.
This fall at the University of Richmond, Dr. Link will teach a course on the Watergate crisis, the series of events that began in 1972 with the burglary of the Democratic National Committee offices in Washington, D.C., and culminated in President Richard Nixon’s resignation. In addition to studying the events of this period and Nixon’s political career, students will examine broader questions about presidential authority and Congress’s constitutional role in responding to misconduct in the Oval Office. Throughout the semester, students will engage with the extensive primary sources available from this pivotal period in American history.
Dr. David Routt rejoins the department in Fall 2025 as an Adjunct Professor. He is a scholar of Medieval Europe, Medieval England, Medieval Economy, Monastaticism, and Paleography. Dr. Routt has taught at the University in various capacities since Fall 2003. He has also previously taught at the University of Kentucky, Ohio State University, University of Rhode Island, and Virginia Commonwealth University. Dr. Routt is also one of the University’s leading pop culture experts for medieval history and fantasy. He’s written two articles for The Conversation on the historical background of HBO’s House of the Dragon television series based on the novels by G.R.R. Martin.
Dr. Routt will teach a course titled Medieval England from the Norman Conquest to Bosworth Field. The course examines in detail the intermingling of Celtic, Germanic, Viking, Norman, Latin, and French influences to create the unique medieval English society and culture. Among topics addressed are the Norman settlement, the rise of Common Law, the development of Parliament and the English monarchy, church-state conflict, university life, monasticism, women and family, town and country, the Great Famine, the Black Death, the Hundred Years War, and the Wars of the Roses. The course will also examine depictions of the English Middle Ages in film and other popular culture.
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Michelle Kahn, associate professor of history, has been awarded a fellowship from the American Jewish Archives for 2025-26 to support research for her book tentatively titled Neo-Nazis in Germany and the United States: An Entangled History of Hate, 1945-2000.
Eric S. Yellin, associate professor of history, participated in the American Historical Association’s Congressional Briefing, offering historical perspectives on the federal civil service.
Michelle Kahn, associate professor of history, has been awarded a National Humanities Center Fellowship for 2025-26 to support writing her book tentatively titled Neo-Nazis in Germany and the United States: An Entangled History of Hate, 1945-2000. Learn more.
Pippa Holloway, Cornerstones Chair in History, won the A. Elizabeth Taylor Prize from the Southern Association of Women Historians for her article, “Virginia Penny’s ‘State of Desperation’: Anger, Insanity, and Struggle for Justice in Nineteenth-Century Kentucky,” which was published in Ohio Valley History.
Ryan Doherty, a 2025 University of Richmond graduate, was selected by the Legal Defense and Educational Fund as part of the fifth and final cohort of this program.
Eight UR students have been offered Gilman Scholarships to support their study abroad experiences in Costa Rica, Germany, Spain, South Africa, and the United Kingdom.
Historian and president emeritus Edward Ayers is quoted.
History professor Michelle Lynn Kahn is interviewed.
History professor Eric Yellin is quoted.
President emeritus and historian Ed Ayers is interviewed.
Mailing address:
History Department
Humanities Building
106 UR Drive
University of Richmond, VA 23173
Phone: (804) 287-6041
Fax: (804) 287-1992
Department Chair: Dr. Pippa Holloway
Academic Administrative Coordinator: Catherine Hash