Randolph-Macon College student Taylor Williams ’20 (history, political science, and gender, sexuality & women’s studies major) has co-authored a chapter in a scholarly book with RMC History Professor Michael R. Fischbach. The chapter, “1948 War and its Consequences,” will appear in late 2020 or early 2021 in the Routledge Companion to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, an edited volume published by Routledge, the prestigious British publishing house founded in 1836 that is the world’s leading academic publisher in the humanities and social sciences.

“It’s crazy to think that I’m now a published author,” says Williams. “This is something I never thought I would be able to do as an undergraduate. Professor Fischbach is always great to work with—he’s incredibly helpful and supportive of my academic interests.”

Fischbach says, “It was a genuine pleasure to work with Taylor in publishing this chapter, which to my knowledge is a first for an RMC history major. She is one of the best students I’ve ever encountered in my 28 years here—perceptive, hard-working and committed to research that contributes to bettering the human condition. Taylor is a superb example of what we do in the history department: prepare our students to make real contributions in life along whatever path they follow.”

Intensive Research
In the chapter, Williams contributed the wide knowledge of the massive demographic and spatial changes that occurred in Palestine/Israel during and after the first Arab-Israeli war of 1948 that she gained through two years of study into population transfers, ethnic cleansing, and property spoliation in various wars and settings in the twentieth century Middle East. Williams pursued this topic as part of several history classes as well as through intensive research experiences outside class thanks to a Schapiro Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) project in summer 2019 and a two-semester senior project in 2019-20, in both instances working with Fischbach. Part of Williams’ SURF project involved traveling to the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration in College Park, Maryland, where she and Fischbach unearthed American diplomatic records detailing the human dimension of what occurred during and after the 1948 war in the Middle East.

Conference Presenter
In addition to the book chapter, Williams twice has presented the results of her scholarship: at a poster presentation at the 2018 Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference on Undergraduate Scholarship and with a paper presented at James Madison University’s annual MadRush Undergraduate Research Conference in 2019.

Campus Life + Future Plans
Williams, from Browns Mills, New Jersey, is a member of the Honors program, Phi Alpha Theta (national history honor society), Iota Iota Iota (national women’s studies honor society) and Pi Sigma Alpha (national political science honor society). She also serves as a tutor in the Higgins Academic Center (HAC). The recipient of the Cecil C. Powell III Memorial Scholarship, she will begin an M.A. studies program at Georgetown University’s Department of Government in fall 2020.