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The Story
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Who Are We? We have found that when someone we know is getting married, we often know very little about the person he or she is marrying. This can be unimportant, amusing, or (occasionally, when one commits a major social gaffe at a wedding) quite seriously embarrassing. We would not want guests of the bride, for instance, saying to the groom's family something like, "well, I've always found that I particularly hate historians." So, for the protection of friends, family, and others, to satisfy the curiosity of the curious, or to give some information to someone coming to the wedding who might just be interested in giving one of us a job, we hereby provide: The Background
Samuel
Lawrence Brenner is a native of Lexington, Massachusetts, and is currently
finishing
his fourth year as a History graduate student at Brown
University in Providence, Rhode Island. He studies modern
United States social and political history, and plans (hopes) to
receive his Ph.D. in May of 2005 or 2006. Sam's dissertation, which he
is writing under the direction of Professor James T. Patterson,
is focused on the growth and development of ultra-Conservative
organizations (such as the John Birch Society) between 1950 and 1980; it is tentatively
entitled Shouting at the Rain: The Growth and Development of
Extremist Right-Wing Anti-Communist Organizations in the Era of
Modern American Conservatism.
Although he studies the far right, Sam is neither a member of
the John Birch Society nor a conservative. Sam went to high school
at Commonwealth School in Boston and then
went to the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor,
where he obtained lots of Michigan clothing, learned how to |
Claudia
Inga Robbins Arno is a native of Honolulu, Hawaii, and is currently a
senior at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, from which she
will graduate on May 31, 2004. Claudia is a Classicist and a
linguist who has concentrated on studying French, Ancient Greek, and
Latin. She is writing her honors thesis at Brown under the
direction of Professor Deborah Boedeker on how classical references to
women changed in the medical writings of Asclepius and Hypocrates in the
fourth and fifth centuries BCE while scientific advances and the advent
of
dissection were providing doctors and healers with increased anatomical
knowledge. Claudia went to high school at Punahou Academy in
Honolulu and while in college has studied at Middlebury College in
Vermont, the University of Hawaii (Manoa), and the University of Sienna
in Italy. At Brown she has served as a Meiklejohn peer advisor, as
a Curricular Advising Program (CAP) Fellow, as a senior staff writer for
the Brown University Critical Review of Courses, as an officer of
the Brown University Hawaii Club, as recording secretary of Brown's
Technology House, and as a member and regular soprano soloist for the
Brown University Chorus, with which she toured Costa Rica. Next year
Claudia will continue developing her skills in Ancient Greek and Latin
while applying to graduate schools in Classics; as a graduate student,
she hopes to do work in Forensic Anthropology and Paleo-Pathology. 
sing Hail to the Victors, and picked up the habit of saying
"Go Blue!" at random intervals. At Brown Sam has fenced with
the Brown Fencing Team, written a column for the Brown Daily Herald,
served as both secretary and co-president of the Graduate Student
Council, served on the Faculty Committee on Student Life and the
Brown College Curriculum Council, served as an officer of the Brown
University Chorus, with which he toured Costa Rica, worked as a
graduate Teaching Assistant for several professors in courses on
modern United States History, the US involvement in Vietnam, the
American Revolution, and the United States in the Early Republic,
and obtained two masters degrees (History and Political Science).
He has also taught United States History at the University of Rhode
Island, worked for