Class Notes: 2009

Katlyn Carter ’09 published her first book, Democracy in Darkness: Secrecy and Transparency in the Age of Revolutions with Yale University Press.  

The book asks a simple question: Does democracy die in darkness, as the saying suggests? It reveals that modern democracy was born in secrecy, despite the widespread conviction that transparency was its very essence. In the years preceding the American and French revolutions, state secrecy came to be seen as despotic-an instrument of monarchy. But as revolutionaries sought to fashion representative government, they faced a dilemma. In a context where gaining public trust seemed to demand transparency, was secrecy ever legitimate? Whether in Philadelphia or Paris, establishing popular sovereignty required navigating between an ideological imperative to eradicate secrets from the state and a practical need to limit transparency in government. The fight over this-dividing revolutionaries and vexing founders-would determine the nature of the world’s first representative democracies.  

Katlyn graduated from Cal with a degree in History and was a reporter and editor at the Daily Californian. She earned her PhD in History from Princeton University in 2017 and is now an assistant professor at the University of Notre Dame. She lives in South Bend, Indiana with her husband and daughter. 

John-Carlos Perea has been appointed to the position of Associate Professor of Music in the School of Music at the University of Washington beginning Fall 2023. He previously served as Chair and Associate Professor of American Indian Studies at San Francisco State University (2010-2023), as Visiting Associate Professor in the Department of Music at UC Berkeley (2021-22), and as Visiting Researcher, Composer, and Performer at the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT, 2022-23).

Shaina Philpot was recently published in the anthology Deserts to Mountaintops: Our Collective Journey to (re)Claiming Our Voice by New York Times Bestselling Author Jessica Buchanan and other contributing authors. Her chapter, “Where Do I Belong?” focuses on the theme of belonging, including her time as a Native American student at UC Berkeley and experiences with domestic violence and suicide. Deserts to Mountaintops reached #1 in 13 categories on Amazon Bestseller/New Release lists on its release date, January 25, 2023 and has 194 five star reviews on Amazon (and counting!).

Justin Chapman came in second place in the Hard News category and third place in the Obituary/In Appreciation category at the 63rd Los Angeles Press Club’s Southern California Journalism Awards in 2021. 

Class Secretary: Flavia Garcia, flaviasnow86@gmail.com