University of Washington

Graduate Student Profiles AMANDA JEANNE SWAIN, PH.D. ROSS COEN, M.A. Amanda Swain recently completed her Ph.D. in Russian and East European History. Her dissertation, "A Death Transformed: The Political and Social Consequences of Romas Kalanta's Self-Immolation, Soviet Lithuania, 1972," analyzed Soviet and postSoviet interpretations of the 1972 self-immolation of a young Lithuanian man and the street demonstrations that followed his funeral. In addition to using sources as diverse as KGB reports from 1972 and YouTube videos from 2009, she conducted nearly 50 interviews with people who participated in or observed the street demonstrations. Ross Coen is a first-year Ph.D. student in the History Department where he is studying the twentiethcentury American West, in particular the intersections of environment, technology, and politics in Alaska fisheries. Before coming to UW, he worked on climate change policy in the office of Senator Ted Stevens and on rural energy development for the Alaska Center for Energy and Power (ACEP), an applied research institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. As a doctoral candidate, she received a 2010-11 Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Award for research in Lithuania. While at the University of Washington, she was actively involved with the Baltic Studies Program and the Simpson Center for the Humanities. Prior to entering the doctoral program, Swain spent ten years with cultural nonprofits, providing public humanities programs to communities in both Washington state and Arizona. She is currently a post-doctoral lecturer in the UW History Department and exploring career opportunities both in and outside of academia. In the meantime, she is beginning a book manuscript based on her dissertation research. Coen's 2012 book, Breaking Ice for Arctic Oil (University of Alaska Press), examines the political and technological history of the SS Manhattan, an icebreaking tanker that transited the Northwest Passage in 1969 in order to test the viability of shipping Alaska North Slope crude oil via circumpolar marine routes. Based on his Masters thesis, the book project was supported by fellowships from the Center for Global Change, Association of Canadian Universities for Northern Studies, University of Alaska Foundation, and the Arctic Research Consortium of the United States. In summer 2013, he will be back at ACEP in Fairbanks researching the long-term influence of technological innovation on the lifespan of Alaska oil fields. Recent Dissertations Jennifer Benner, From the Iron Cage to Eichmann: German Social Theory and the Critique of Rationalization, Chair: John Toews Julie Osborn, Women, War, Vietnam: The Mobilization of Female Images, 1954-1978, Chair: William Rorabaugh Hsiao-wen Cheng, Traveling Stories and Untold Desires: Female Sexuality in Song China, 10th-13th Centuries, Chair: Patricia Ebrey Jason S. Shattuck, A Place for Every Barbarian, A Road for Every Roman: Imperium, Movement, and Roman Identity from Pompey to Hadrian, Chair: Sandra Joshel John Foster, Reconstructing Humanity: Philosophies of the Human in the German Cold War, Chair: John Toews Chad Garcia, Horsemen from the Edge of Empire: The Rise of the Jurchen Coalition, Chair: Patricia Ebrey Christopher Herbert, White Power, Yellow Gold: Colonialism and Identity in the California and British Columbia Gold Rushes, 1848 – 1871, Chair: John Findlay Andrew Stone, Growing Up Soviet? The Orphans of Stalin's Revolution and Understanding the Soviet Self, Chair: Glennys Young Amanda Swain, A Death Transformed: The Political and Social Consequences of Romas Kalanta's Self-Immolation, Soviet Lithuania, 1972, Chair: Glennys Young Stefan T. Kamola, Rashid al-Din and the Making of History in Mongol Iran, Chair: Joel Walker Nathaniel Weston, Scientific Authority, Nationalism, and Colonial Entanglements between Germany, Spain, and the Philippines, 1850 to 1900, Chair: Uta Poiger Allan E. S. Lumba, Monetary Authorities: Market Knowledge and Imperial Government in the Colonial Philippines, 1892-1942, Chair: Vicente Rafael Woonkyung Yeo, Palembang in the 1950s: The Making and Unmaking of a Region, Chair: Laurie Sears Deborah C. McNally, Within Patriarchy: Gender and Power in Massachusetts's Congregational Churches, 1630-1730, Chair: Richard Johnson PAGE 8 University of Washington

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