Department of Humanities and Fine Arts

History

Department of Humanities and Fine Arts

History

History and Religion College of Arts and Sciences | Department of Humanities and Fine Arts | Major

The study of History is an important part of the journey for intellectual development and human understanding. Through a study of History, we cultivate and develop an understanding of the varieties of the human experience. History helps students develop analytical skills to interpret both the past and the present as well as identify trends and explore human existence. History helps students appreciate both the possibilities and the limits of our own age.

History Staff Directory

Dr Alaine Hutson
Professor of History
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Dr. Hutson has won several grants from the Sam Taylor Fellowship from the United Methodist Church and the UNCF Mellon Mays program.
Dr. Hutson has been part of international conferences on Enslavement in the Islamic, Red Sea and Indian Ocean worlds held in Zanzibar, virtually through Stanford University and has been a visiting research fellow at the Qatar National Library.
Her recent publications are “REMAPping the African Diaspora: Place, Gender, and Negotiation in Arabian Slavery.” In Gendering
Knowledge in Africa and the African Diaspora: Navigating a Contested Terrain, eds. Toyin Falola and Mickie Koster, Amherst, NY: Cambria Press, 2018 and “ ‘His Original Name Is . . .’ : REMAPping the slave experience in Saudi Arabia.” In Forms of Bonded Labour: Conceptual Approaches Towards a New Comparative Research Framework, eds. Sabine Damir-Geilsdorf, et al, Bielefeld,
Germany: transcript, 2016.
Mr. Ethen Peña
Visiting Assistant Professor of History
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ethen peña is an instructor in the Department of Humanities & Fine Arts at Huston-Tillotson University and a PhD student in Mexican American & Latina/o Studies at The University of Texas at Austin.
They teach across U.S., Latin American, and borderlands history (including Mexican American History and Texas–Mexico Borderlands History), and build courses around close reading, argumentation, and writing as public-facing skills. Their research sits at the intersection of history, ethnic studies, and critical theory, with interests in social movements, archives, and state power in the U.S.–Mexico borderlands.
Their writing includes reviews in Aztlán: Journal of Chicano Studies, E3W Review of Books, and South Texas Books in Review. They are currently reviewing Gloria Anzaldúa’s posthumous Prieta Is Dreaming: A CuentosNovela (forthcoming) in Aztlán (Spring 2026), and a book chapter currently under development for the edited volume Latinx Marxisms: Revolutionary Nationalism, Socialism and Communism in Latina/o/x History, Politics & Culture.