Greetings from the Center for Campus History! Happy end of the school year and congratulations to all you new graduates! For May’s newsletter we have student news, center updates, book recommendations, and more!

The University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Rebecca M. Blank Center For Campus History is an ongoing effort to expand and enrich UW-Madison’s historical narrative by centering the voices, experiences, and struggles of marginalized groups. As always, if you have a story to share, an event you think should be researched, or a person you think has been overlooked, please email us at centerforcampushistory@wisc.edu. 

Speaking of graduates, we are beyond excited to celebrate (and devastated to lose) FOUR of the Center’s longtime student researchers who donned caps and gowns this month!

Huge congratulations to Annika Bereny (B.S in History and Journalism), Karla Martinez (B.A. in Chicanx/e & Latinx/e Studies and History), Nama Pandey (B.A in Political Science and History), and Dr. Alexandra Pasqualone (Ph.D. in History and Educational Policy Studies)!

They have made an indelible mark on the CCH and we will miss them dearly!

The CCH was saddened to learn of the passing this month of Jon Miskowski, PBS Wisconsin’s Emeritus Director of Television.

Jon spent more than four decades in public broadcasting, and among countless contributions, he was instrumental in digitizing a long-hidden undercover film in the UW Archives exposing housing discrimination in Madison in the 1960s that was shared publicly for the first time as part of the Center’s Sifting & Reckoning exhibition.

You can read more about Jon’s life and work here.

Each month, we like to share one of the many (many… many… ) books that have helped the Center’s research. This month we’re recommending Scream With Me: Horror Films and the Rise of American Feminism (1968-1980) by Columbia Professor Eleanor Johnson. 

Simultaneously a celebration of classic horror cinema and a fresh work of cultural analysis, Scream With Me explores how iconic films like Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcist, and The Shining expose and critique issues of reproductive control, domestic violence, and patriarchal oppression.

Johnson weaves these movies into the fabric of American feminism, revealing that true horror often lies not in the supernatural, but in the familiar confines of the home, exposing the deep-seated fears and realities of women’s lives.

Each month Center Director Kacie Lucchini Butcher will share a book, podcast, movie, quote, or something else she thinks has been adding to the CCH. We're calling it "From The Desk of KLB".

This month From the Desk of KLB: Angel Down, the winner of the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for fiction by Daniel Kraus is part historical fiction and part horror allegory. Following a group of WWI soldiers who seemingly stumble upon a fallen angel shot down by an artillery shell in No Man’s Land, the novel plunges readers into the heart of the Great War and weaves a polyphonic tale of survival, supernatural wonder, and moral conflict.