About Us
The Center for the Study of Force and Diplomacy (CENFAD), founded in 1993 by Drs. Richard Immerman, Russell Weigley, and David Rosenberg, fosters interdisciplinary faculty and student research on the historic and contemporary use of force and diplomacy in a global context. CENFAD is housed within Temple University’s History Department.
The Marvin Wachman Director of CENFAD, Dr. Richard Immerman, reports to the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Temple University and to CENFAD’s Board of Advisors. CENFAD sponsors lectures, colloquia, workshops, and conferences on an ongoing basis (listed under News and Events); and various multi-year projects.
Each year, CENFAD gives several prizes to recognize and support undergraduate and graduate research in military, diplomatic, and international history. CENFAD reports its activities twice a year in its newsletter Strategic Visions Magazine.
CENFAD is the home of the HERTOG PROGRAM IN GRAND STRATEGY Click here to learn more about the Hertog Program in Grand Strategy, read the course syllabus, and read some of the essays produced by the seminar.
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NEWS FOR THE CENFAD COMMUNITY:
*The latest edition of Strategic Visions Magazine is now available! The editorial staff would like to thank the students, faculty, alumni, and CENFAD supporters who helped make the publication of this semester's newsletter possible. Link to Spring 2013 edition
*Congratulations to Fredrik Logevall, the John S. Knight Professor of International Studies
at Cornell University, who has
been awarded the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for History for his book Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam. CENFAD was thrilled to welcome Professor Logevall to campus this spring for a Colloquium on the Vietnam War.
*Congratulations to Jean-Robert Lalancette of McGill University, whose paper "From Decrepit Empire to Third World Champion: France’s Incredible Transition, 1958-1963," won this year's Edwin H. Sherman Family Prize for Undergraduate Scholarship in Force and Diplomacy. To read Jean-Robert's paper, click here.
*Congratulations to Dr. Jay Lockenour, whose recent article on German war films, "Black and White Memories of War: Victimization and
Violence in West German War Films of the 1950s,” Journal of Military
History 76:1 (January, 2012), 159-191, won the Moncado prize from
the Society of Military History awarded to the four best articles each
year.
*Jason's Smith's article, "The Bound[less] Sea: Wilderness and the United
States Exploring Expedition in the Fiji Islands," has been accepted for
publication in Environmental History. Jason defended his dissertation last May;
his committee members were Profs. Urwin (chair), Bailey, Isenberg, and
John B. Hattendorf, Ernest J. King Professor of Maritime History at the
United States Naval War College.
*Congratulations to David J. Ulbrich, whose book was named one of the four finalists for the prestigious 2012 Samuel Eliot Morison Book Award bestowed by the Naval Order of the United States. David’s 2011 book, Preparing for Victory: Thomas Holcomb and the Making of the Modern Marine Corps, 1936-1943, has already won the General Wallace M. Greene, Jr., Award, the top book prize awarded by the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation. David's acclaimed book originated as his doctoral dissertation at Temple University. And David will return to Temple to speak about Thomas Holcomb on October 10 as part of ongoing CENFAD colloquium.
*Congratulations to Temple's own Earl J. Catagnus, Jr., ABD. E.J. received a $5,000 dissertation fellowship from the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation. His dissertation, “’Getting Rid of the Line’: Toward an American Infantry Way of Battle, 1918-1945,” is an ambitious project that taps both institutional and cultural history in an effort to trace the parallel interwar development of U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps infantry doctrine and how those services diverged during World War 2. E.J. has already received the General and Mrs. Matthew B. Ridgway Research Grant from the Army Heritage Center Foundation and this past June he became the latest in a long line of Temple ABDs to participate in the West Point Summer Seminar in Military History at the U.S. Military Academy.
* Former Davis Fellows Matt Shannon and Tim Sayle each received much-sought-after Bemis Grants from SHAFR! Tim will use the funds for a return trip to Brussels to conduct research for his dissertation, "A Western Alliance? The Evolution of NATO, 1956-1966." Matt's dissertation is "Losing Hearts and Minds: American Foreign Relations and Iranian Student Migration during the Cold War." Writing a transnational history, Matt will use the funds to visit multiple archives.
* Tim Sayle, 2009-2010 Thomas Davis Fellow, has won a Doctoral Fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada that will fund his studies and research for the next two years. Federally funded SSHRC fellowships are highly competitive and much sought after by Canadians at home and abroad. We at CENFAD, and Temple's Department of History, could not be prouder. See Tim's recent publication, "'But he has nothing on at all!': Canada and the Iraq War, 2003," in Canadian Military History 19:4 (Autumn 2010).
* Congratulations to former Davis Fellow David Zierler. The University of Georgia Press has published his The Invention of Ecocide: Agent Orange, Vietnam, and the Scientists Who Changed the Way We Think about the Environment.
* Kelly Shannon, a former Davis Fellow, has accepted a tenure-track position at the University of Alaska-Anchorage. Congratulations, Kelly!
* Former graduate student Brady King has been nominated by President Obama for appointment as Senior Advisor to the Vice President and Director of the Office of Legislative Affairs at the Overseas Private Investment Corporation.
* The University of Oklahoma Press published Temple Ph.D. and current Army War College faculty member Michael Matheny's Carrying the War to the Enemy: American Operational Art to 1945.
* CENFAD would like to extend a hearty congratulation to Andrew McKevitt; a Temple alum, former Thomas Davis fellow, and current professor
at Philadelphia University. He was recently awarded SHAFR's 2010
Stuart L. Bernath Scholarly Article Prize for his article: "'You Are
Not Alone!': Anime and the Globalizing of America,"Diplomatic History 34 (November 2010).
* Along with his co-editors, Vladislav Zubok has won SHAFR's Arthur S. Link-Warren Kuehl Prize for the edited volume, Masterpieces of History: The Peaceful End of the Cold War in Europe, 1989. The prize recognizes outstanding collections of primary source materials in the field of international history.
* Michael Dolski has accepted a post-doctoral fellowship with the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command’s Central Identification Laboratory inHawaii.
* CENFAD's Wachman Director, Dr. Richard Immerman, is the feature interview in the latest edition of Rorotoko.com. He discusses his latest book, Empire for Liberty: A History of American Imperialism from Benjamin Franklin to Paul Wolfowitz. Read the interview here.
* Beth Bailey's America's Army: Making the All-Volunteer Force continues to receive high praise and was recently reviewed by John Nagl for the journal Democracy. Dr. Bailey was the feature of the cover interview for March 19's edition of Rorotoko. Click here to read the interview.
