Rate My Professor James Frusetta-Ulfhrafn

Dr. James Frusetta-Ulfhrafn is the Assistant Dean of the Faculty and Elliott Professor of History at Hampden-Sydney College. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Maryland (2006), an M.A. from Arizona State University (1996), and a B.A. from the University of Southern California (1992). His research focuses on modern Southeastern Europe and Central Europe, particularly nation- and state-building processes, as well as political violence, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. He is currently working on a book manuscript that examines state-building in Bulgaria from 1870 to 1960, exploring efforts to expand central state power and incorporating English-language historiography, with collaborative opportunities for students proficient in Bulgarian, German, or Italian. Other ongoing projects include investigations into discussions of fascist terrorism in American newspapers from the 1920s and 1930s, such as The Washington Post, New York Times, and Boston Herald, covering groups like National Socialism, the National Fascist Party, the Arrow Cross, and the League of the Archangel Michael; and analyses of fascist ideology depictions in American popular culture, including films, comics, genre novels, and the internet, extending his prior scholarship on fascism in role-playing games, comics, and board games.

In his career at Hampden-Sydney College, Dr. Frusetta-Ulfhrafn has advanced through academic ranks to his current endowed professorship and administrative role. His notable publications include 'The Final Solution in Southern and Southeastern Europe: Between Nazi Catalysts and Local Motivations' in Jonathan Friedman, ed., Routledge History of the Holocaust (New York: Routledge, 2011), pp. 265-277; 'Fascism to Finish the Nation: Bulgarian Fascism's Uncertain Palingenesis of the National Project,' East Central Europe 37:2-3 (2010), 280-302; 'Beyond Morality: Teaching about Ethnic Cleansing and Genocide,' Perspectives on History 48:5 (2010), 39-40; and, with Anca Glont, 'Interwar Fascism and the Post-1989 Radical Right: Ideology, Opportunism and Historical Legacy in Bulgaria and Romania,' Studies in Post-Communism 42:3 (2009), 551-571. He has been honored with the Charles H. Revson Fellowship from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, a Fulbright-Hayes Fellowship for Bulgaria, and Boren Fellowships for Bulgaria and Macedonia. Dr. Frusetta-Ulfhrafn maintains active memberships in the Association for the Study of Eastern European, Eurasian and Slavic Studies, the American Historical Association, the Southern Conference on Slavic Studies, and the Bulgarian Studies Association.