History Graduate Student Wins International Prize

History graduate student Katlyn Rozovics won the Nels Andrew Cleven Founder’s Prize from the Phi Alpha Theta international history honors society.

The award is given annually in recognition of outstanding graduate-level scholarship and honors the founder of the organization. Cleven, a professor at the U of A, came to love the university and the communitas around it. This inspired him to form Phi Alpha Theta, now the largest honors organization of its kind.

Rozovics’ paper, “Material Culture in France during the Dark Years,” focuses on the French Dark Years, 1940-1944. She used a material culture approach to examine items like ration cards, coal and guns to analyze everyday life during the war in both the free and occupied zone.

Rozovics’ adviser, Laurence Hare, added, “I am so proud of Katlyn Rozovics and delighted to see her hard work rewarded. She is taking an innovative approach to understanding the development of a democratic Germany in the postwar era. By taking a fresh look at longstanding debates over art restitution, she has made some fascinating insights into the challenges that the German courts, the media and the public faced to confront the memory and legacy of the Holocaust and cultivate a new society based on democratic values. This prize from Phi Alpha Theta speaks to the importance of her research.”

“This is amazing! I am proud that Ms. Rozovics’ extraordinary accomplishments have been recognized by one of most significant organizations in the discipline of history,” said Caree Banton, the chair of the Department of History. “She is indeed one of our most talented and impactful graduate students who is illustrative of our department’s efforts to further Fulbright’s research mission, in particular, and the university’s student success efforts in general.”

Rozovics is a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History. She has a B.A. from the University of Iowa. Rozovics currently studies modern German history and is working on a dissertation that examines the relationship between democracy and art restitution. 

This story also appeared in the University of Arkansas News publication.