Rate My Professor James Frusetta-Ulfhrafn

Dr. James Frusetta-Ulfhrafn serves as Assistant Dean of the Faculty and Elliott Professor of History in the History Department at Hampden-Sydney College. His academic specializations encompass Modern Southeastern Europe and Modern Central Europe, with particular interests in nation- and state-building, as well as political violence, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. Currently, he is working on a book manuscript examining state-building efforts in Bulgaria from 1870 to 1960, focused on the expansion of central state power. His research also addresses depictions of fascist terrorism in American newspapers of the 1920s and 1930s, including coverage in The Washington Post, New York Times, and Boston Herald of organizations such as National Socialism, the National Fascist Party, the Arrow Cross, and the League of the Archangel Michael. Furthermore, he investigates representations of fascist ideology within American popular culture, spanning films, comics, genre novels, and online media, extending his earlier studies on fascism in role-playing games, comics, and board games.

Frusetta-Ulfhrafn 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). He has been honored with the Charles H. Revson Fellowship from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, a Fulbright-Hayes Fellowship in Bulgaria, and Boren Fellowships for study in Bulgaria and Macedonia. Notable publications include "The Final Solution in Southern and Southeastern Europe: Between Nazi Catalysts and Local Motivations," chapter in Routledge History of the Holocaust, edited by Jonathan Friedman (New York: Routledge, 2011); "Fascism to Finish the Nation: Bulgarian Fascism's Uncertain Palingenesis of the National Project," East Central Europe 37:2-3 (2010); "Beyond Morality: Teaching about Ethnic Cleansing and Genocide," Perspectives on History 48:5 (2010); and, co-authored 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). A member of the Association for the Study of Eastern European, Eurasian and Slavic Studies, American Historical Association, Southern Conference on Slavic Studies, and Bulgarian Studies Association, he also directs the Honors Program and contributes to the Global Cultures curriculum at Hampden-Sydney College.