Dr. Hugh Agnew

Ph.D., History, Stanford University, 1981
Recent Publications:

• “They’re Singing Our Song,” Historica Olomucensia: Journal for Central European History (forthcoming).
• “Odrakouštět se? Czechoslovakia, 1918-1938, and the Habsburg Legacy,” Kosmas: Czechoslovak and Central European Journal, NS Vol. 2, no. 1 (2019): 48-58.
• The Czechs and the Lands of the Bohemian Crown (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 2004), Czech translation, Češi a země Koruny české (Prague: Academia, 2008).

Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: Language and identity, Czech-Slovak relations

Mr. Orel Beilinson

Ph.D., History, Yale University, 2024 (expected)
Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: 19th-century and 20th-century history, literature, cultural history, everyday life

Dr. David L. Cooper

Ph.D., Russian and Czech Literatures, 2004
Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: Folktales, Romantic era literature, translation

Dr. Michael R. Cude

Ph.D., History, University of Colorado at Boulder, 2013
Recent Publications:

• Woodrow Wilson: The First World War and Modern Internationalism. Abingdon, Oxon, UK: Routledge, 2023.
• The Slovak Question: A Transatlantic Perspective, 1914–1948. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2022.
• Co-author with Ellen Paul, “Czechoslovakia” in East Central European Migrations during the Cold War: A Handbook, ed. Anna Mazurkiewicz (Berlin: DeGruyter, 2019): 101-135.
• “The Transatlantic Slovak Question in the Interwar Period,” Slovakia (2019) 44, 82 & 83: 18-59.
• “Wilsonian National Self-determination and the Slovak Question during the Founding of Czechoslovakia, 1918-1921,” Diplomatic History (2016) 40, 1: 155-180.

Dr. Kevin Deegan-Krause

Ph.D., Government and International Affairs
Recent Publications:

• 2015. With Tim Haughton. Hurricane Season: Systems of Instability in Central and Eastern Europe Party Politics. Eastern European Politics, Societies and Cultures, 29(1): 68-80.
• 2019. With Sarah Engler and Bartek Pytlas. Multiple Varieties of Populism in Central and Eastern Europe. West European Politics.
• 2020. With Tim Haughton. The New Party Challenge: Changing Cycles of Party Birth and Death in Central Europe and Beyond. Oxford University Press.

Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: Politics, Political Parties, Elections, Civil Society

Dr. David Doellinger

Ph.D., History, University of Pittsburgh, 2002
Recent Publications:

• Turning Prayers into Protests: Religious-Based Activism and its Challenge to State Power in Socialist Slovakia and East Germany (Central European University Press, 2013).

Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: Opposition and Resistance to State Socialism, Cold War, Religion

Mr. Kevin Duska, Jr.

M.A. Political Science, The Ohio State University, 2009
Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: Eastern Slovakia, Rusin, Social Construction of Slovakia, Slovak Military Affairs

Dr. Erin Dusza

Ph.D., Art History, Indiana University, 2024
Recent Publications:

• Art, Historicism, and Nostalgia in the Creation of Czechoslovak National Identity. 2024. Indiana U, PhD dissertation. This work explores the development of Czechoslovak national symbols and iconography in public works and how they informed the concept of national history and identity, covering both Czech and Slovak artists. 
• “Warrior or Damsel? Representations of the Nation as a Woman.” Gender and Nation in East Central Europe, edited by Marta Cieślak and Anna Müller, Lexington Books, Lanham, 2025. The chapter compares the female national allegories of Germany, Poland, and the Czech lands in the long nineteenth century.
• “Pan-Slavism in Alphonse Mucha’s Slav Epic,” Nineteenth Century Art Worldwide, Vol. 13 Issue 1, Spring 2014.

Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: Czech and Slovak Art History and National Identity (19th- early 20th Century)

Dr. Joel Fetzer

Ph.D., Political Science, Yale University, 1996

• 2023. “Anti-Corruption Attitudes in Post-Communist Slovakia: ‘Hellfire-and-Deviance’ or Political Socialization.” Slovak Journal of Political Sciences 23(1):5-26.
• 2023. “Religion and the State in Germany and Slovakia: Convergence and Divergence of a Western versus Central European Case” (with J. Christopher Soper). Pp. 205-239 in Shannon Holzer, ed. Palgrave Handbook of Religion and State, Volume II: Global Perspectives. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: Migration, Ethnic Politics, Religion and Politics

Ms. Garance Fromont

Master’s degree, Film studies, Sorbonne nouvelle, France, 2017
Ph.D. candidate, Université Paris Cité, Paris, France

• De Jessie à Muriel, super-héroïnes tchèques face à la normalisation. Sur l’oeuvre transmédiatique du dessinateur tchèque Kája Saudek.
• Mémoires du livre/Studies in Book Culture, Groupe de recherches et d’études sur le livre au Québec, vol. 14, n°1, 2025.
• La guerre froide de Jules Verne – Penser l’Histoire contemporaine dans deux films verniens de Karel Zeman (Tchécoslovaquie) », Manon Berthier, Corentin Daval, Marie Kergoat (dir.), Actes du colloque, Raconter l’Histoire. Récits et Histoires dans les cultures de l’imaginaire, Laboratoire des imaginaires, 2025.
• Sortir de la masse. Ambivalence de la foule dans quelques films de la Nouvelle Vague tchécoslovaque », Revue À l’épreuve, n°22, 2022, alepreuve.org.

Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: History of Slovak cinema and film production in Koliba studio between 1950s and 1960s

Dr. Tim Haughton

PhD, Social Sciences/Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London
Recent Publications:

• ‘Corruption, Campaigning and Novelty: The 2020 Parliamentary Elections and the Evolving Patterns of Party Politics in Slovakia’, East European Politics and Societies, 36 (3) (2022), pp. 728-752 (with Marek Rybar and Kevin Deegan-Krause)
• ‘Time Will Tell: Communism’s Shadow on Czech and Slovak Politics’, Securitas Imperii, 39 (2021), pp. 25-35
• The New Party Challenge: Changing Patterns of Party Birth and Death in Central Europe and Beyond Oxford: Oxford University Press (2020) (with Kevin Deegan-Krause)

Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: Slovak Politics, especially parties and elections

Dr. Karen Henderson

PhD, Politics, University of Leicester, 2012

Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: Slovak politics, relations with the EU

Dr. Roman Hlatky

Ph.D., Government, University of Texas at Austin
Recent Publications:

• Hlatky, Roman. 2021. “EU Funding and Euroskeptic Vote Choice,” Political Research Quarterly.
• Csata, Zsombor, Roman Hlatky, and Amy H. Liu. 2021. “How to head count ethnic minorities: validity of census surveys versus other identification strategies,” East European Politics.

Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: Political Parties; Voting Behavior, Nationalism

Dr. Felix Jeschke

PhD, History, University College London, 2016
Recent Publications:

• Iron Landscapes: National Space and the Railways in Interwar Czechoslovakia (New York: Berghahn Books, 2021)
• “’Mountain Men’ on ‘Iron Horses:’ National Space in the Representations of New Railway Lines in Inter-War Czechoslovakia,” in: Bohemia, 56.2, 437–55 (2016)
• “Dracula on Rails: The Pressburgerbahn Between Imperial Space and National Body, 1867–1935,” in: Central Europe, 10.1, 1–17 (2012)

Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: Interwar Czechoslovakia, infrastructures, tourism, migration

Taylor Kanuk

B.S., Illinois State University, 2022
Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: Gender & Migration

Ali Karakaya

MBA, Business Administration, Yeditepe University, Istanbul, 2024
Ph.D. candidate, Slavic Languages and Literatures, Stanford University
Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: Russophone and Ukrainophone writing from Prešov, Slovakia

Dr. Stanislav J. Kirschbaum

D.Rech., Political Science, Université de Paris, 1970
Recent Publications:

• Historical Dictionary of Slovakia, 3d edition, Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2014, lxxi & 415 pages
• “Význam ťažiskových aktivít SKS” in Peter Jašek, ed., Svetový kongres Slovákov v zápase proti komunistickému režimu, Bratislava: Ústav pamäti národa, 2018, pp. 85-96
• “Sister Margit Slachta of Hungary and the Deportation of Slovak Jews”, Canadian Slavonic Papers/Revue canadienne des Slavistes, LVI (1), 2019, pp. 99-116.

Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: History, politics

Dr. Michael J. Kopanic, Jr.

Ph.D., History, University of Pittsburgh, 1986
Recent Publications:

• “Lowland Registers Are Getting Closer to Descendants,” Naše rodina, v.35, 4 (Dec. 2023): 158-59.
• “My Slovakia,” in Palovic, Zuzana, and Bereghazyová Gabriela, Slovak Settlers: An Emotional History of Immigration, Senica, Slovakia: Global Slovakia, 2023, pp. 390-405.  I also edited and rewrote parts of the 135-page introduction and wrote the bibliography.
• “Slováci majú sklon hádať sa medzi sebou a rozdeľovať sa pre malichernosti. Rozhovor s historikom Michaelom J. Kopanicom,” Kultúrne dejiny / Cultural History, v Volume 13, Issue 2, pp. 291-304, Pripravil Ján Golian, kulturnedejiny.ku.sk/new/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/cultural-history-2022-2-interview-S.pdf.
• “Emigration to North America from Czechoslovakia 
during the Communist Era,”  Verbum, 23.11.2022, https://verbumcasopis.sk/clanky/57/emigration-to-north-america-from-czechoslovakia-during-the-communist-era/ (accessed Dec. 8, 2022).
• “World War I in Slovakia, 1914-1915,” Naše rodina, v.33: 2 (June 2022): 1, 43-49.

Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: 20th century Slovak History, Slovak customs, Slovak Immigration, Slovak labor history

Dr. Roman Krakovsky

Ph.D., Université De Paris I Pantheon-Sorbonne
Recent Publications:

• Populism in Central and Eastern Europe (Berghahn, 2025)
• State and Society in Communist Czechoslovakia: Transforming the Everyday from WWII to the Fall of the Berlin Wall (2018)
• Europe centrale et orientale de 1918 à la chute du mur de Berlin (Armand Colin, 2017)

Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: populism, democratization, modernization

Mr. Kevin J. McNamara

M.A., Political Science, Temple University, 1995
Recent Publications:

• Dreams of a Great Small Nation: The Mutinous Army that Threatened a Revolution, Destroyed an Empire, Founded a Republic, and Remade the Map of Europe (New York: Public Affairs, 2016). Translated and re-published in the Czech and Slovak republics in 2020.
• “From Brussels, with Love,” The National Interest, no. 163 (September/October 2019): 41-50.
• “How America’s European Allies Got Stuck In a Foreign Policy Triangle,” nationalinterest.org/feature/how-americas-european-allies-got-stuck-foreign-policy-triangle-74211
• “Milan R. Štefánik: His Under-Appreciated Contributions to Czecho-Slovak Independence,” Kosmas: Czechoslovak and Central European Journal, vol. 2, no. 1 (Spring 2019): 59-64. www.svu2000.org/kosmas/ebooks/pdf/Kosmas_Free_NS2019_02-1.pdf

Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: Founding of Czecho-Slovakia, history of Czech and Slovak peoples. Geographic: Central Europe, European Union, Russia. Thematic: international relations vs. trans-nationalism; empires vs. nationalism, sovereignty, and national identity.

Dr. Christina Manetti

Ph.D., History, University of Washington, 1998

Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: history, language, ethnography

Dr. Juraj Marušiak

PhD., Comenius University, Bratislava, 2003
Recent Publications:

• MARUŠIAK, Juraj. “Czech Republic and Slovakia – Changing Perception of the European Integration Since 1989,” In Meandering in Transition. Thirty Years of Reforms and Identity in Post-Communist Europe. – London : Lexington Books (imprint of Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group), 2021, p. 109-134. ISBN 978-1-7936-5074-0 Hardback
• MARUŠIAK, Juraj. “‘Slovak, not Brussels Social Democracy:’ Europeanization/De-Europeanization and the Ideological Development of Smer-SD Before 2020 Parliamentary Elections in Slovakia,” In Politologický časopis – Czech Journal of Political Science, 2021, vol. 28, issue 1, p. 37-58.
• MARUŠIAK, Juraj – ZLATANOVIĆ, Sanja. “Slovakia as a Safe Country – The Perspective of the Slovak Community Members of Vojvodina,” In Slovenský národopis – Slovak Ethnology, 2020, vol. 68, issue 2, p. 136-160.

Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: political parties; contemporary history; Central European studies

Mr. Michael Mojher

B.A., Asian History, 1972

Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: Slovak literature in English

Mr. David Muhlena

M.A., Library and Information Science, University of Iowa, 1992

Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: Books, periodicals, archival materials, sheet music and sound recordings produced by the Slovak-American community

Dr. Marty Manor Mullins

Ph.D., History, University of Washington, 2013
Recent Publications:

• “Forgotten Velvet: Understanding Eastern Slovakia’s 1989,” New Perspectives: Interdisciplinary Journal of Central and East European Politics and International Relations, vol. 27, no. 3, (Winter 2019): 63-100, doi:10.1177/2336825X1902700304.
• “Prague Spring on the Periphery: Eastern Slovak Steelworkers React to Reform and Invasion in 1968,” Kosmas: Czechoslovak and Central European Journal, vol. 1, no. 2 (Winter 2018).
• “Kicked Out: Czechoslovakia’s Postwar Policy toward Ethnic Minorities and Its Unintended Outcomes,” Slovakia, vol. 43, no. 80-81 (2017).

Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: History of Eastern Slovakia, Urban history, Contemporary Slovak politics

Dr. Denisa Nešťáková

PhD., History, Comenius University in Bratislava, 2018
Recent Publications:

• “Jewish Centre and Labour Camps in Slovakia,” in Between Collaboration and Resistance. Papers from the 21. Workshop on the History and Memory of National Socialist Concentration Camps, Berlin: Metropol, 2020.
• “Regulation of sexual relations between Jews and non-Jews according to the Decree 198/1941 during the Slovak republic,” Judaica et Holocaustica 7. Women and WWII. (eds. Nešťáková, D. – Nižňanský, E.) Bratislava : Hlbina, 2016. pp. 89-117. (with Eduard Nižňanský)
• “Swedish interventions in the Tragedy of the Jews of Slovakia,” Nordisk judaisk. Scandinavian Jewish Studies. (Illman R. – Zetterholm Hedner, K. eds.) vol 27, No. 2, 2016. pp. 22-39. (with Eduard Nižňanský)

Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: 20th century History; Holocaust Studies; Gender Studies

Dr. John Palka

Ph.D., Zoology, University of California, Los Angeles, 1965
Recent Publications:

• “Independent but Not Alone: The Long Intellectual Journey from Nationhood to Integration,” Kosmas New Series Vol.2, No. 1, pp. 19-31 (2019).

Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: History and culture

Mr. Jonathan Parker

Master’s European Studies, Jagiellonian University
Recent Publications:

• “‘You mean the goyim are our equals?’: Postcolonial Readings of Ivan Olbracht’s Writings on Subcarpathian Ruthenia, 1931-1937.” Spiegelungen 21, no. 2 (December 2021): 23-38.
• “From Empire to Oblivion: Situating the Transformation of the Habsburg Empire in Global Context.” The Hungarian Historical Review 11, no. 2 (October 2022): 422-444.

Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: Interwar period, nationalism, policing, 19th & 20th century

Ms. Vanda Rajcan

M.A., History, Illinois State University, 2010

Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: World War II, Holocaust, Slovak wartime state

Dr. Cecilia Rokusek

Ph.D., Education, University of South Dakota, 1983

Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: Interprofessional education and public health and medicine; also arts and culture in my current position

Ms. Tanya Silverman

M.A., Charles University, 2018
Ph.D. candidate, Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Michigan
Recent Publications:

• Tanya Silverman (2023) “Bohemians in 1970s New York City: perspectives on Miloš Forman and Ivan Passer’s films,” Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 43:1, 148-166, doi:10.1080/01439685.2022.2096314.

Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: Film, visual arts

Dr. Edward Snajdr

Ph.D., University of Pittsburgh, 1998
Recent Publications:

• Snajdr, Edward. 2012. “From brigades to blogs: Environmentalism online in Slovakia 20 years after the Velvet Revolution.” Sociologický časopis/Czech Sociological Review 48(3): 493-508.
• Snajdr, Edward. 2008. Nature protests: the end of ecology in Slovakia. University of Washington Press.
• Snajdr, Edward. 1998. “The children of the greens: New ecological activism in post-socialist Slovakia.” Problems of Post-communism 45(1): 54-62.

Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: Environmentalism, Environmental Justice, Political Anthropology, Nationalism

Mr. Paul Soderdahl

M.A., Library and Information Science, University of Iowa, 1996

Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: scholarly publications and creative works by Slovak writers in exile and immigrants, 1939-1989

Dr. Max Steuer

LL.M. University of Cambridge, Cambridge, 2020;
Ph.D., Comenius University, Bratislava, 2019
Recent Publications:

• Steuer, Max. “The ‘Will of the People’ as Means for Pressuring the Rule of Law? The Case of the Slovak Constitutional Court,” Zeitschrift Für Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft (German Journal of Comparative Politics), Jan. 2025, doi:10.1007/s12286-024-00620-z.
• Gábriš, Tomáš, and Max Steuer. “The Consequences of COVID-19 Emergency Risk Mismanagement: The Rise of Anti-Evidence Decision Making in Slovakia.” European Journal of Risk Regulation 16, no. 2 (2025): 446–59. doi:10.1017/err.2025.10015.
• Steuer, Max. 2024. “Cultural Expertise, Hate Speech, and the Far Right: The Slovak Mazurek Case.” Legal Pluralism and Critical Social Analysis 56 (2): 215–35. doi:10.1080/27706869.2024.2309790.

Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: Constitutionalism; Democracy and the Rule of Law; EU Law and Politics; Freedom of Expression; Judiciary

2024 Slovak Studies Association Lifetime Achievement Award

Dr. Marian Mark Stolarik

Ph.D., History, University of Minnesota, 1974
Recent Publications:

• Editor, The Czech and Slovak Republics: Twenty Years of Independence (Budapest: CEU Press, 2017).
• Author, Where is my Home? Slovak Immigration to North America (1870-2010) (Bern: Peter Lang, 2012).
• Editor, The Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia, 1968 (Mundelein, Il: 2010).

Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: All of Slovak history

Dr. Veronika Szeghy-Gayer

Ph.D., Cultural Studies, Doctoral School of History, Eötvös Loránd University of Science, Budapest, Hungary, 2016

Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: Interethnic relations; Nationalism; Urban History; History of Slovakia; Hungarian minority in Czechoslovakia, 1918–1948; Jewish communities in Slovakia until 1945

Mr. Samuel Trizuljak

M.St., Modern European History, Oxford University, 2018
Recent Publications:

• S. Trizuljak, “Clerical Fascism or Presentism?”, History – Theory- Criticism, 1/2020, p. 101-111 (Slovak), doi:10.14712/24645370.2897.
• S. Trizuljak, “Let me sing: A pilot study of oral-historical materials on the phenomenon of Catholic youth choirs in Bratislava in the Normalization Era”, National Memory Studies, 1/2023, p. 50-70. (Slovak).
• S. Trizuljak, “The Normalisation Choir: Bratislava Catholic youth choirs as a case study of youth activities in Slovakia under late socialism”, Central European Journal of Contemporary Religion, forthcoming, (English).

Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: Religion and Political Thought in Slovakia in the 20th century

Ms. Madeline Vadkerty

B.S., French and Russian, Georgetown University, 1978
Ph.D. candidate, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Gratz College (anticipated 2024)
Recent Publications:

• “The Story of Andrej Horn: A Case Study in the Microhistory of the Holocaust,” S:IMON, vol. 10, no. 3 (2023): 26-45, Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies, doi:10.23777/sn.0323/art_mvad01.
• “Aspects of the Holocaust During the Slovak Autonomy Period (October 6, 1938, to March 14, 1939),” Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe, Vol. 42, Iss. 1, Article 2 (2022), doi:10.55221/2693-2148.2315.
• “Jewish Entreaties to Slovak President Tiso during the Holocaust,” EHRI Document Blog, European Holocaust Research Infrastructure, 27 Jan. 2022, blog.ehri-project.eu/2022/01/27/jewish-entreaties/.

Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: Slovak World War II history, Holocaust

Dr. Leslie Waters

Ph.D., History, University of California, Los Angeles, 2012
Recent Publications:

• Borders on the Move: Territorial Change and Forced Migration in the Hungarian-Slovak Borderlands, 1938-1948 (University of Rochester Press).

Dr. Svorad Zavarský

Ph.D., Slavic Studies & Neo-Latin Studies, Slovak Academy of Sciences & Comenius University, 2010
Recent Publications:

• “The Idea of Encyclopaedia at the University of Trnava around 1700,” Early Modern Universities and the Sciences, ed. Vittoria Feola (Milano: Franco Angeli, 2020) 56-82.
• “Martinus Szent-Ivany’s Notion of scientia: Some Preliminary Notes on the Semantics of Neo-Latin Science,” Acta Conventus Neo-Latini Albasitensis, ed. Florian Schaffenrath – María Teresa Santamaría Hernández (Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2020) 675-687.
• ‘‘Et meus vere paradisus audit: mandra, Poesis’: The poetry of Antonius Faber Written and Published in Bratislava between 1831 and 1853,’ Christophe Bertiau – Dirk Sacré, Le latin et la literature néo-latine au XIXe siècle: Pratiques et représentations (Roma-Bruxelles: Academia Belgica, 2019) 159-185.

Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: The Latin Culture of Early Modern Slovakia, Classical Reception, Early Modern Intellectual History of Slovakia, Jesuit Studies, Piarist Studies, The Works of Martinus Szent-Ivany S.J. (Martin Svätojánsky), Latin-Vernacular Relations in the History of Slovakia, The Latin Culture of the Slovak Greek Catholics

2024 Slovak Studies Association Lifetime Achievement Award

Dr. Owen V. Johnson
(1946-2022)

Ph.D., History, University of Michigan, 1978
Select Publications:

• “Entertaining the People, Serving the Elites: Slovak Mass Media Since 1989,” in Media Transformations in the Post-Communist World: Eastern Europe’s Tortured Path to Change, edited by Peter Gross and Karol Jakubowicz (Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2013), pp. 149-65
• “Failing Democracy: Journalists, the Mass Media, and the Dissolution of Czechoslovakia,” in Michael Kraus and Allison K. Stanger, ed., Irreconcilable Differences?: Explaining Czechoslovakia’s Dissolution (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000), pp.163-82
• Slovakia 1918-1938: Education and the Making of a Nation (New York: Columbia University Press/East European Monographs, 1985)

Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: history of sociocultural development, especially the history of mass media in Slovakia

Professor Emerita Mary Ann Malinchak Rishel
(1940-2023)

M.F.A., Writing, Cornell University, 1979
Select Publications:

• “For Better or for Worse: A Marriage of Humor and Comedy.” In Teaching Comedy, edited by Bev Hogue, 2023, pp. 141-149.

Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: History; culture