CREES extends hearty congratulations to Professor Valerie Kivelson, who was appointed Thomas N. Tentler Distinguished University Professor of History at the July 2026 Board of Regents meeting. Professor Kivelson served as CREES Associate Director this past year, bringing her remarkable dedication and expertise to our students and curriculum, and while she will be greatly missed in that role, this honor is a wonderful recognition of an extraordinary career.
The professorship is named in honor of Thomas N. Tentler, a distinguished historian of religion in medieval and early modern Europe who taught in U-M's department of history from 1963 to 2000. Tentler authored the notable monograph Sin and Confession on the Eve of the Reformation and devoted his career to studying attitudes toward death in the European Middle Ages and other periods.
Kivelson, who also holds the titles of Arthur F. Thurnau Professor and Thomas N. Tentler Collegiate Professor of History in LSA, has spent her career reshaping scholarly understanding of Muscovy, cartography, religion, and witchcraft in 15th- through 18th-century Russia. Her landmark books — Autocracy in the Provinces: Russian Political Culture and the Gentry in the Seventeenth Century, Cartographies of Tsardom: The Land and Its Meanings in Seventeenth-Century Russia, and Desperate Magic: The Moral Economy of Witchcraft in Seventeenth-Century Russia — have opened new ways of seeing early Russia and its peoples.
Her work has been recognized with numerous honors, including the Historia Nova Prize for the best book on Russian intellectual and cultural history, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Social Science Research Council. In 2019, she was elected a corresponding fellow of the British Academy.
CREES director Elizabeth King spoke to both the significance of the appointment and the impact of Kivelson's service to the center: “Professor Kivelson is so deserving of this honor. We were fortunate to have Val as our Associate Director this past academic year and it is an honor for CREES that one of our dedicated faculty associates earned the named professorship. Congratulations to Val on this prestigious recognition of her commitment to the university and her field.”
Sama Totah, a recent alumna of the Masters in International and Regional Studies - Russian, East European, and Eurasian studies specialization (MIRS-REEES) reflected on the announcement. “Working with Professor Kivelson has fundamentally shaped the way I approach research. She has an extraordinary depth of knowledge, but what has inspired me most is her genuine commitment to discovery, her belief that every subject deserves to be explored with rigor, curiosity, and care. She consistently challenged me to think more critically, ask better questions, and strive for the highest standard in my work. Her mentorship has made me a stronger researcher, and the example she sets continues to influence how I approach scholarship. I can think of no one more deserving of this recognition. Congratulations, Professor Kivelson!”
