History professor Kris Klein Hernández awarded Duke Fellowship

Duke University awarded Conn’s Kris Klein Hernández, assistant professor of history, a Summer Institute on Tenure and Professional Advancement (SITPA) fellowship.

The SITPA is a competitive two-year program for tenure track faculty of color. A mentoring and professional socialization initiative, it’s designed for early-career faculty to facilitate successful transition from junior faculty status to tenured associate professor. The program’s underlying objective is to address the persistent underrepresentation of racial and ethnic minorities on the faculties of U.S. colleges and universities.

“I am excited to join a diverse community of scholars that centers on intergenerational mentorship and collaboration,” said Hernández, a U.S. historian of race, gender and sexuality. 

“As a scholar who identifies at the disciplinary boundaries of history and critical ethnic studies, I’m eager to learn from [working in this] multidisciplinary space.” 

Hernández specializes in comparative racialization, militarization and sexuality in the 19th century with a focus on the geography of the U.S.-Mexico boundary. He teaches courses on 19th-century U.S. history; borderlands history; Vast Early America; settler colonialisms; comparative ethnic histories; U.S. imperialism and empire; and sexuality from the early republic to the present.

For the two-year tenure of the fellowship program, he will complete and share work on his book-length manuscript, “The Color of the Army: Forts and Race-Making in the Nineteenth Century U.S. Mexico Borderlands.” 

“I will also be working on an article about the Aztec Club of 1847. During the U.S. Army’s occupation of Mexico City, military personnel founded this fraternal society that utilized and appropriated Indigenous iconography. The club featured future leaders—including Franklin Pierce, Ulysses S. Grant, and Robert E. Lee,” he said. 

Hernández received his Ph.D. in American Culture from the University of Michigan, a MA in History from the University of Texas, El Paso, and his A.B. in Latin American Studies cum laude and Spanish from Bowdoin College. Prior to arriving at Connecticut College, he taught at Harvard University, Yale University, and Bowdoin College.