Todd S. Gernes

Biography

Professor of History Todd S. Gernes is a social and cultural historian whose teaching and scholarship focuses on American culture and society in the 19th and 20th centuries, with specializations in African American history, literary history, historical editing, museum studies and material culture studies.

Gernes is faculty advisor for the Phi Alpha Theta National History Honors Society. He has been awarded fellowships from the American Antiquarian Society, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Getty Research Institute, and has published scholarly articles and book reviews in MELUS, The New England Quarterly, The African American Review, The Winterthur Portfolio, World History Connected, and The International Journal of the Inclusive Museum. He served as English language editor for A Drop in the Sea: Armenian Contemporary Prose (Yerevan, 2022). His present research focuses on a blended African American/Native American family in New England from the Civil War to the present, exploring themes such as cultural identity, race, civic engagement and activism, and historical memory.

Education

• A.M. & Ph.D., American Civilization, Brown University
• B.A. & M.A., English and American Literature, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Courses Taught

• American Nation I & II
• American Family History
• The Gilded Age and the Progressive Era
• The Great War, 1914-1918
• African American History Survey
• The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass
• The Civil Rights Movement
• Jazz: Race and Social Change