European History
Our faculty in European history have particular strengths in Late Antiquity-Early Middle Ages including early Byzantium and the early Islamic World, the Later Middle Ages and Reformation, and Modern European History (particularly Germany). Faculty guide masters’ theses and doctoral dissertations, and offer a wide range of graduate and undergraduate courses. Particular topical strengths of the Europeanists in our department are: war and society/culture; religious communities and conceptions of holiness and heresy; the history of empire; race, nation, and gender; borderlands; the history of science; and international relations and diplomacy. In addition, through General Education Western Civilization courses, the European history faculty teach a large percentage of all the undergraduates at UT.
- Andersen, Margaret: Modern France; French Revolution; nineteenth- and twentieth-century Europe; Modern European imperialism.
- Bast, Robert: Late Middle Ages; Early Modern Germany; Renaissance; Reformation.
- Black, Monica: Modern Europe, Modern Germany, especially post 1945.
- Gillis, Matthew: Early medieval Europe, Carolingian world, Cultural and Intellectual history, Christianization of Europe.
- Latham, Jacob: Roman History, Late Antiquity, Early Christianity, Ancient Roman traditional religions, and Rome in late Antiquity
- Liulevicius, Vejas: Modern Germany, Modern Europe, Eastern Europe, Nazi Germany, Cultural and intellectual history, nationalism, and ethnicity.
- Petrov, Victor: Modern Balkans & Eastern Europe, Modern European history, Cold War Studies.
- Phillips, Denise: Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Germany, Modern European, Intellectual and cultural History, History of Science.
- Ritchey, Sara: Religious life, gender, medicine, manuscripts, late medieval Europe
- Shepardson, Tina: Early Christian thought, Syriac
- Yirga, Felege-Selam: Identity and memory in Late Antiquity; Early Byzantine historiography, Medieval and Early Modern Ethiopian History.
American History
Our department’s American historians offer concentrated strengths in African-American history, Atlantic and transnational history, early American history, nineteenth century history, religious history, and southern history. The Americanist faculty are leaders in their respective fields, and their books have garnered awards from the American Historical Association, the Southern Historical Association, the Southern Regional Council, the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, the Kentucky Historical Society, and the Agricultural History Society, among others. They are supported by the outstanding manuscript collections of the UT Libraries, a presidential papers project, and the department’s Center for the Study of Tennesseans and War. Faculty members regularly offer specialized graduate courses in African-American history, capitalism and slavery, southern history, early American history, political history, history of medicine, Atlantic history, the Civil War Era, and the United States in the world. These professors play a key role in the graduate program through coursework and guiding theses and dissertations. And in teaching general survey courses, upper-division courses, and honors seminars, the professors of American history have been recognized for their commitment to undergraduate education, as has the department in general.
- Bland, Robert: African-American, Southern, Reconstruction/Gilded Age.
- Block, Kristen: Atlantic World, Caribbean, slavery, religion, History of medicine, Women’s & Gender History.
- Freeberg, Ernest: Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century American Cultural History, American religion.
- Harlow, Luke: Nineteenth-Century America, Civil War Era, Slavery and Emancipation, American religion, U.S. South.
- Lawrence, Susan: History of Medicine
- Magra, Christopher: Vast Early America, American Revolution, Slavery, Food and Agriculture, Maritime History.
- Norrell, Robert: Southern History; Twentieth-Century U.S.; American Race Relations.
- Olsson, Tore: Modern US, Transnational, U.S. South, Food and Agriculture, Rural, Environmental, Latin America.
- Winford, Brandon: African American, Twentieth Century U.S., Southern U.S., Black Business History, Civil Rights.
- Woods, Michael: Early Republic and Antebellum U.S., Civil War Era, Political History, Cultural History, History of Emotions, Slavery and Emancipation
World History (Africa, Asia, and Latin America)
UT’s World History Program draws together the diverse talents and interests of a broad, multidisciplinary faculty. In teaching world history and specialized courses in Jewish history and the history of Africa, China, Japan, Latin America, and the Middle East, these faculty members play an important role in expanding the academic experience and intellectual horizons of UT’s undergraduate students. These faculty members are also an essential part of the graduate program, offering courses, participating in thesis and doctoral committees, and teaching Group III courses. An ability to teach world history has become a common prerequisite for many academic positions offered today.
- Black, Chad: Early Latin America, Gender and Sexuality, Spanish Legal Culture, Nineteenth-Century Andes and Mexico, Bicycle History.
- Dessel, J.P.: History and Archaeology of Ancient Israel and the Near East; Rise of complex societies; Ethnicity in the Ancient World.
- Eggers, Nicole: Modern African History, DRCongo, Central Africa/Great Lakes, health and healing in Africa, African religion, violence, gender.
- Gaitors, Beau: Modern Latin America, Mexico, race, Afro-Latin America, independence.
- Nenzi, Laura: Early Modern Japan, gender.
- Sanft, Charles: Early Imperial China, legal history, ritual and translations.
- Yıldırım, Duygu: Early Modern Mediterranean, Ottoman Empire, History of Science & Medicine, religion, translation, and cross-cultural interactions.
- Yirga, Felege-Selam: Identity and Memory in Late Antiquity; Early Byzantine Historiography, Medieval and Early Modern Ethiopian History.