Amber Nickell

Dr. Amber Nickell

Contact Information:
History Programs
Fort Hays State University
Rarick Hall 382
600 Park Street
Hays, KS 67601-4099
(785) 628-5874
annickell2@fhsu.edu

Education:
Ph.D., Purdue University, 2021
M.A., University of Northern Colorado, 2013
B.A., University of Northern Colorado, 2011
A.A., Aims Community College, 2006

Fields of Study:
Modern Central and Eastern Europe
Transnational Germany
Late Imperial and Soviet Borderlands
Modern America
Human Rights
The Holocaust and Genocide
Diaspora and Migration
Digital Humanities

Dr. Amber N. Nickell is an Assistant Professor of History at Fort Hays State University. She earned a Ph.D. in Central and Eastern European history from Purdue University (2021). Amber also received a MA in American history (2013) and a BA in European history (2011) from the University of Northern Colorado. She has presented her work at numerous local, national, and international conferences, workshops, and symposia and received a number of awards for her writing, research, service, and teaching. Additionally, she is a recipient of several research grants and fellowships, including the Saul Kagan Fellowship for Advanced Shoah Studies, the Auschwitz Jewish Center Fellowship, Title VIII fellowships, and the Fulbright Fellowship (Ukraine). 

Amber’s training as a scholar of both Europe and the United States enables her to conduct research and teach across these fields. Her methodologies transcend the national, focusing on transnational phenomena, including migration, diaspora, deportation, ethnic cleansing, the Holocaust and genocide, human rights, and internationalism. Her command of the spatial humanities augments these strengths. Amber’s most recent publication, “Time to Show the Kremlin America's Full House: The Committee for Human Rights in the Soviet Union, Rabbi Gedalyah Engel, and their Refusnik Adoptees, 1977-1992,” which appeared in The Transnational Yearbook, Volume 1 (Fairleigh Dickenson, 2018), serves as one example. 

Amber’s current project, tentatively titled “Brotherlands to Bloodlands: Ethnic Germans and Jews in Southern Ukraine, Late Tsarist to Postwar” examines coexistence, confluence, and conflict between the two groups in Southern Ukraine and Transnistria. She considers the astounding territorial, political, and demographic shifts in the region over the long durée and ponders their impact on intergroup relationships. In doing so, she illuminates the historical processes that transformed interactions between ethnic Germans and their Jewish neighbors from neighborly to murderous. 

Selected Publications:
Amber N. Nickell, "'Time to Show the Kremlin America's Full House': The Committee for Human Rights in The Soviet Union, Rabbi Gedalyah Engel, and their Refusenik Adoptees, 1977-1992," In Transnational Yearbook, Volume 1 (Vancouver: Farleigh Dickenson University Press, 2018): 189-216.  

Amber Nickell, "Cultivating 'Roots': Towards a Diasporically Imagined Transnational Community: The American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 1968-1978," Traversea: Journal of Transatlantic History (2013):  4-16.

Upcoming Courses at FHSU:
Summer 2023

HIST 300/600G: History of Global Human Rights

Fall 2023
HIST 110:  World History to 1500
HIST 111: Modern World History
HIST 618: German History

Courses Previously Taught at FHSU:

HIST 111: Modern World History
HIST 379: Historical Methods
HIST 627: Soviet History
HIST 628: Europe Since 1914 (In Person and Online)
HIST 675: Seminar in History, “Nationalism and Socialism in Central and Eastern Europe” (In Person and Online) 

HIST 678: Jewish Life in Eastern Europe before, during, and after the Holocaust (In Person and Online) (Study Tour)