Florida State University Department of History William O. Oldson Professor of History Founder & Director Institute on World War II and the Human Experience

    I received my Ph.D. in 1970 from Indiana University where I specialized in the history of the Balkans and the Habsburg Monarchy. My initial research was sponsored by a Fulbright Fellowship and was spent in Bucharest, Romania. During this initial experience in Romanian archives I used primarily the resources of the Romanian Academy Library and the Central State Library working on the thought of the country's foremost historian, Nicolae Iorga. I returned to Romania on an International Research and Exchanges Fellowship to investigate the impact of Eastern Rite Roman Catholicism on Romanian culture and sense of ethnic identity. For this trip I used the archives of the branch of the Romanian Academy Library in Cluj, Transylvania as well as the holdings of Babes-Bolyai University. In preparing for my research in Romania, I also lived for a six month period in London while investigating the materials available in the Reading Room of the British Museum and in the Public Records Office.

    Since 1969 I have taught at Florida State University. In the last four decades I have served as  Associate Chair for Undergraduate Affairs, Associate Chair for Graduate Affairs, and Director of the M.A. Program in Historical Administration and Public History [as background for this position I served as a labor union historian, chief negotiator, arbitrator, and mediator]. I am the founder and director of the Institute on World War II & the Human Experience [for which I received the Military Order of the World Wars' Silver Patrick Henry Medallion for Patriotic Achievement as well as the Historic Preservation Medal of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution]. My teaching has earned me the University Teaching Award for excellence on two occasions as well as a Teaching Incentive Program Award . In addition I was the Phi Eta Sigma (National Freshman Honor Society) Professor of the Year and a Charter Member of the President's Council for Excellence in College Teaching.

    My published research has centered on modern Romanian history, resulting in books entitled The Historical and Nationalistic Thought of Nicolae Iorga,  A Providential Anti-Semitism: Nationalism and Polity in Nineteenth Century Romania, and The Politics of Rite: Jesuit, Uniate, and Romanian Ethnicity in 18th C. Transylvania. For the book on anti-Semitism I was awarded the American Philosophical Society's John Frederick Lewis Prize for "the outstanding book of the year" and was a  National Jewish Book Award [for Scholarship] Nominee.  I have also been a Holocaust Educational Foundation Fellow and a Fellow of the Institute on the Holocaust and Jewish Civilization at Northwestern University.  For my research on the Holocaust and for the creation of the Institute on World War II and the Human Experience I was named the Dorothy & Jonathan Rintels Professor of Humanity. This combination of  teaching and research acitivities also resulted in a  Professorial Excellence Program Award.

    I teach a Senior Seminar for graduating History majors ["The World War II Experience" which allows students the use of the archival holdings of the Institute on World War II & the Human Experience]  as well as a variety of offerings on the Holocaust, WWII, and Eastern Europe.  The students in the Senior Seminar  base their papers on the letters, diaries, memoirs, and photographs housed in the WWII  Institute and also have an opportunity to interview members of "the Greatest Generation."  This experience with primary source materials and of defending a major research effort before their peers gives them an invaluable measure of preparation for further professional education.

  Dr. Oldson's Books

Institute on World War II & the Human Experience

History Department

Links

Updated 2/1/06

If you have comments or suggestions, email me at woldson@garnet.acns.fsu.edu