Phi Alpha Theta NY-NJ Regional Conference 2025

PANEL 1: NAZI VALUES AND THE OCCULT
LaPenta School of Business, Room 105

• Chair: Nerissa Aksamit, St. Joseph’s University
• Adam Danberg, Iona University
  “The Religion of National Socialism”
• Sagan Martin, SUNY Plattsburgh
  “Rudolf Steiner, Anthroposophy, and the Occult in German History”
• Diana Gilday, St. John’s University
  “Selective Morality: The Hypocrisy of Nazis and Heteronormative Values”

PANEL 2: LAW, LITERATURE, AND HISTORY
LaPenta School of Business, Room 101

• Chair: Daniel Thiery, Iona University
• Neil Palmieri, Marist University
  “The Trial that Birthed the Witch Hunts: Machinations and Motivations Behind the Malleus Maleficarum”
• Christopher K. Horton, St. John’s University “Sensational and Informative: Crime Literature in Early Modern England”
• Grace Hayes, St. Joseph’s University
  “Blood, Ink, and the Outsider: The Evolution of Nineteenth- Century Gothic Vampire Literature Alongside European Social Anxieties”

PANEL 3: LGBTQ ACTIVISM
LaPenta School of Business, Room 102

• Chair: Caitlin Wiesner, Mercy University
• Eliza Lyons, Sacred Heart University
  “Riot, Resistance, Revolution: The Stonewall Riots and the Progression of the Queer Movement in the 1970’s”
• Maeve Harkin, Hunter College
  “Living Propaganda” to Picketing: Lesbian Activism in The Ladder Under Barbara Gittings”
• Anna Trachsler, New Jersey City University
  “On Stonewall and the Mob: The Impact of the Mafia on Queer Activism”

PANEL 4: URBAN WORLDS: NEW YORK, NEW JERSEY, AND LONDON
LaPenta School of Business, Room 201

• Chair: Gary Kroll, SUNY Plattsburgh
• Xavier Sousa Brandao, Montclair State University
  “Catholicism, London, and the Protestant Yoke”
• Sophia Burns, New Jersey City University
  “‘Organize Everything That Works’: An Analysis of Two Early-Twentieth Century Strikes in Bayonne, New Jersey’”
• Ashley Chiu, SUNY New Paltz
  “The Poughkeepsie Station: New York Central to Metro-North”

PANEL 1: LEADERSHIP, IDENTITY, AND HORSEPOWER IN THE HISTORY OF WAR
LaPenta School of Business, Room 105

• Chair: Christopher Albi, SUNY New Paltz
• Colm McLaughlin, Dominican University
  “Wild Geese, an Archbishop, and the Renegade Captain: The History of the Irish Brigade”
• Jack Capriola, US Military Academy at West Point “General and Diplomat: Marlborough at Blenheim and the Establishment of the British Coalition”
• Christopher Picón, CUNY Queens College
  “The Revival of German Cavalry on the Eastern Front, 1943-1945”

PANEL 2: THE CLASSICAL WORLD
LaPenta School of Business, Room 101

• Chair: Christopher G. Libertini, Dominican University
• Gaelen Purnell, Sacred Heart University
  “The Crossroads of Empires: The Eastern Romans’ Connections to the Red Sea Trade Network from 300 AD to 650 AD”
• Corey Pekusic, SUNY New Paltz
  “Femme Fatale or Fearsome Foe? An Analysis of Power, Defiance, and the Female Other in Greek Myth”
• Leo Fein, University of Miami
  “‘[They] Run no Risk of Being More Than Your Subjects’: The Changing Public Rule of Roman Imperial Women, 31BCE-138 CE”

PANEL 3: AFRICAN STUDIES
LaPenta School of Business, Room 102

• Chair: John Bragg, New Jersey City University
• Jonathan Ayewah, Iona University
  “Igbo Gender Norms and the Nigerian Civil War”
• Courtney Blom, Marist University
  “Whither Assimilators or Resistors: An Analysis of African Women’s Experiences During the Atlantic Slave Trade”
• Lilian DeFilippis, Marist University
  “Educational Imperialism: Decolonizing African Studies”

PANEL 4: WOMEN’S RIGHTS
LaPenta School of Business, Room 201

• Chair: Kayleigh Whitman, Iona University
• Jordan Matty, Sacred Heart University
  “Girls Just Want to Have Credit: The Liberation of Women Through Credit in the Twentieth Century”
• Brandon Ronquillo, St. Joseph’s University
  “A Nation of Grrrls?: Riot Grrrl as an Imagined Community”
• Gabrielle Wells, St. Joseph’s University
  “Changing Tides Within the Waves: Third-Wave Feminism’s Expansion of Historical Methodologies”

PANEL 1: THE COLD WAR AT HOME AND ABROAD
LaPenta School of Business, Room 105

• Chair: Fungisai Musoni-Chikede, Marist University
• Samuel Little, Buffalo State University
  “Cold War Pizza: Frozen Pizza from the 1950s-70s in the U.S.”
• John Abbot, Southern Connecticut State University “Bullet the Blue Sky: The Internal Struggles of the American Military Preceding and Following the U-2 Spy Plane Incident”
• Ty Gilligan, Dominican University
  “The Unnecessary War: The Historical Background to the Russia-Ukraine War of 2022”

PANEL 2: NAZIS, POPULAR OPINION, AND MEMORY
LaPenta School of Business, Room 101

• Chair: Elspeth Martini, Montclair State University
• Isabella Youssef, Hunter College
  “The People Pleasers of Bavaria: How Public Opinion Informed Nazi policy”
• Owen Graf, SUNY Plattsburgh
  “Nazi Propaganda: From Persecution to Genocide”
• Eitan Neustadt, SUNY New Paltz
  “The End of Nazi Concentration Camps in 1945: Liberation and Freedom or De-Occupation?”

PANEL 3: POWER PLAYS IN CHINA AND THE UNITED STATES
LaPenta School of Business, Room 102

• Chair: Yasuhiro Makimura, Iona University
• Devin Valverde, US Military Academy at West Point
  “Deng Xiaoping: An Improbable Rise to Power”
• Abigail Holcomb, SUNY Plattsburgh
  “The Outcomes of the Chinese One Child Policy: ‘the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly’”
• Karson Bolaños, Saint John Fisher University
  “From Independence to Dependence: A History of U.S. Intervention in Panama”

PANEL 4: WOMEN AT WAR
LaPenta School of Business, Room 201

• Chair: Cynthia Metcalf, Dominican University
• Henry Denyil Philipps, Iona University
  “The Three Margarets: An Analysis of the Roles of Women During the Wars of the Roses”
• Michelle Chuchuca, Iona University
  “Women and Gender Roles in Revolutionary America”
• Kaitlyn Incandela, Iona University
  “Weaponizing Femininity: The Strategic Use of Women and Female Stereotypes for Espionage During World War II”

PANEL 1: FDR AND DOMESTIC LIFE
LaPenta School of Business, Room 105

• Chair: James Carroll, Iona University
• Andrew Breen, Marist University
  “Star-Spangled Fascism: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Fall of American Fascist Organizations at the Dawn of WW11”
• Kara Clark, Marist University
  “Dear President and Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt: How Gender Influenced the Way Americans Wrote to FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt in 1940”
• Tyler Rosario, Marist University
  “Beyond Wartime Hysteria: How FDR’s Military Used Japanese Internment to Conceal the Failure of Pearl Harbor”

PANEL 2: EUROPEANS AND AMERICANS, NATIVE AND OTHERWISE
LaPenta School of Business, Room 101

• Chair: Scott White, Dominican University
• Daniel Cassiere, Quinnipiac University
  “Silent Legal Defeat: The Suppression of Native Self-Determination in the Law”
• John Callahan, Montclair State University
  “Borderlands and Gender: A Key in Peace”
• Elizabeth Pfisterer, US Military Academy at West Point “Paths of Conquest: Comparative Colonial Administration in New Spain and New Netherland”

PANEL 3: WORLD WAR I AND II
LaPenta School of Business, Room 102

• Chair: Sergio Pinto-Handler, Marist University
• Joshua Campbell, Iona University
  “To Keep the Flag Flying: The British Suffrage Movement in the First World War”
• Skyler Misiaszek, SUNY Plattsburgh
  “The ‘Red Tails’ Friends and Foes: Institutional Racism within the Military during WWII”
• Tylyn Johnson, Iona University
  “The Atomic Age: World War II and the Nuclear Revolution”

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN HISTORICAL RESEARCH AND TEACHING
LaPenta School of Business, Room 105

• Moderator: Christopher G. Libertini, Dominican University
• Panelists:    
  • Nora Slonimsky, Iona University
  • Daniel Thiery, Iona University
  • Cynthia Metcalf, Dominican University
  • Fungisai Musoni-Chikede, Marist University

The conference organizers, Michael J. Hughes and Jimena Perry, and the Alpha-Alpha-Pi chapter of Phi Alpha Theta would like to thank the following individuals and organizations for their support and assistance in organizing this event.

• Christopher G. Libertini
• Megi Abazaj
• Joseph Stabile, Dean of the School of Arts and Science, Iona University
• Nora Slonimsky, Director of the Institute for Thomas Paine Studies and History Department Chair, Iona University
• The Institute for Thomas Paine Studies, Iona University The Lapidus Initiative for Early American Inquiry
• Casey DelliCarpini
• Rob Lusardi
• Peter Maceli
• Liam Geer
• Peter Tascio
• University Marketing & Communications, Iona University
• Jason Kattenhorn
• Courtney Zaffuta and the staff at Phi Alpha Theta National Headquarters