I was delighted to receive the Provost’s Teaching Award in 2015. I welcome proposals from students interested in postgraduate study at Trinity whose research interests overlap with my own. With the recent formation of the U.S. History and Politics Network for Ireland, it is an exciting time to embark on postgraduate study in American history here. At the undergraduate level, I currently teach Sophister classes (Levels 3 & 4) on ‘American Politics and Culture, 1939-1989’ (List 1) and ‘Race and Ethnicity in American Social Thought, 1880-2000’ (List 3), as well as contributing to the Senior Freshman (Level 2) class, ‘Themes in Modern American History.’

My research on twentieth-century U.S. history focuses on the intellectual, political, and cultural history of the century’s middle decades. My interests include: political ideologies and movements, especially liberal and left-wing varieties; the development of American ideas about race and ethnicity; and the history of the social sciences and their role in shaping public discourse and public policy. I have explored these interests in two books: a history of the controversy over the 1965 “Moynihan Report” about African American families and an intellectual biography of influential social critic C. Wright Mills. I have published articles on a wide range of topics such as the music and prison activism of country singer Johnny Cash, the relationship of the New Left to liberalism, and Southern segregationists’ views of European decolonization.