Jennifer Stitt, a PhD candidate in the History Department at UW–Madison, has been featured in an article from Danish newspaper Dagbladet Information on the cultural history of solitude and the practice of social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Stitt is writing her dissertation, titled “Seeking Solitude: Imagining Self and Society in America” under the advisement …
Professor Gregg Mitman, a scholar of medical history and environmental studies, is featured today in an interview with the College of Letters & Science discussing what we can learn from global epidemics in a historical lens. Professor Mitman has studied the historical path of infectious disease outbreaks across centuries and the globe, and has released …
On April 7th, Professor Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen will be honored by the University of Wisconsin–Madison with a Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award! Professor Ratner-Rosenhagen was one of thirteen faculty members selected to receive an award this year. A university tradition since 1953, these awards are given out annually to recognize some of the university’s finest educators. At …
Professor Paige Glotzer, a scholar of urban history and political economy, has been selected as the Urban History Association’s member of the week! She is profiled on The Metropole, the official blog of the Urban History Association, here: https://themetropole.blog/2020/02/18/member-of-the-week-paige-glotzer/. Asked about her advice for young scholars who are preparing for a career related to urban history …
Alumnus Gregory Jones-Katz (Ph.D. 2016), has published an article in the journal Rethinking History. The article rereads French philosopher Jacques Derrida’s 1988 Critical Inquiry essay on literary critic and literary theorist Paul de Man’s collaborationist articles and his postwar silence. During his time at UW–Madison, Jones-Katz was advised by Professor Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen, who specializes in U.S. intellectual …
Professor Patrick Iber has published a review essay of historian Alexander Zevin’s new book Liberalism at Large: The World According to the Economist in The New Republic. Professor Iber is a contributing editor for that magazine, and writes frequently for its Books & the Arts section. He is also an editorial board member of Dissent magazine, where …
Professor Gloria Whiting recently published an article in Slavery & Abolition titled “Emancipation without the courts or constitution: the case of Revolutionary Massachusetts.” The essay rethinks the process by which freedom was inaugurated in Massachusetts, suggesting that slavery petered out before the constitution declared all men “free and equal.” Therefore, though historians have long believed …
Please join us in congratulating Professor Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen, whose most recent book The Ideas that Made America: A Brief History (Oxford University Press, 2019) was featured in the Washington Post’s 50 Notable Works of Nonfiction in 2019! The listing for the book reads, “Aspiring to do a little of everything, a professor covers various schools …
Spiritual Socialists: Religion and the American Left Refuting the common perception that the American left has a religion problem, Vaneesa Cook highlights an important but overlooked intellectual and political tradition that she calls “spiritual socialism.” Spiritual socialists emphasized the social side of socialism and believed the most basic expression of religious values—caring for the sick, …
An insightful exploration of the iconic Galápagos tortoises, and how their fate is inextricably linked to our own in a rapidly changing world. The Galápagos archipelago is often viewed as a last foothold of pristine nature. For sixty years, conservationists have worked to restore this evolutionary Eden after centuries of exploitation at the hands of …