Professor Emeritus

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kkusmer@temple.edu 930 Gladfelter Hall 1115 Polett Walk Philadelphia PA 19122 Expertise Social, Urban, Media, Race, 19th and 20th Century

Kenneth L. Kusmer (B.A., Oberlin College; Ph.D., University of Chicago), Professor of History at Temple University, has also taught at the University of Pennsylvania, as Bancroft Professor of American History at the University of Goettingen, Germany, and as a Fulbright Lecturer at University of Genoa and University of Roma Tre (Rome). He has published extensively on race, ethnicity, poverty and the media in American history, including most recently Down and Out, On the Road: The Homeless in American History, and co-edited African American Urban History since World War II. Professor Kusmer teaches a wide variety of courses, including modern American social history, race and ethnicity in American history, African American history, recent US history, and modern American history through film; and, at the graduate level, courses on American social history of the industrial era (1865-1945); social history of the post-industrial era (1945-present), and media and society in American history. These courses provide a broad overview of fundamental structural changes that have transformed American life since the mid-19th century, focusing on issues involving class, race, ethnicity, gender, and technology. His current research deals with the social history of American film (class, race and gender issues), from the silent film era to the present. More information, including a list of PhD and MA graduates who worked with Professor Kusmer, can be found on his web page."

Selected Publications

  • A Ghetto Takes Shape: Black Cleveland, 1870-1930.
  • Down and Out, On the Road: The Homeless in American History
  • Editor, Black Communities and Urban Development in America, 1720-1990
  • Co-editor, African American Urban History since World War II
  • “Modernization and Its Discontents: Homelessness and Middle-Class Media., 1850-1930” Atlantic Communications: Media in American and German History from the 17th to the 20th C., ed. N Finzsch and Ursula Lehmkuhl
  • “Toward a Comparative History of Racism and Xenophobia in the United States and Germany, 1865-1933,” in Elisabeth Glaser and Hermann Wellenreuther eds., Bridging the Atlantic:: The Question of American Exceptionalism in Perspective
  • “Donne Sinistre: Conflitto Familiare, Stile Hollywoodiano,” [Sinister Women: Family Conflict, Hollywood Style], Acoma: Rivista Internationale di Studi Nordamericani 17 (1999/2000).
  • “11 Septembre, I Media e La Politica della Nostalgia” [September 11, the Media and the Politics of Nostalgia], Leggendaria: Libri, Letture, Linguaggi 31 (September 2002).
  • “Historiography,” Oxford Encyclopedia of American Cultural and Intellectual History, ed. Joan Rubin and Scott Casper

Courses Taught

  • The History and Significance of Race in American History
  • Modern American Social History, 1865-1945.
  • Recent American History since 1945
  • Modern U.S. History thru Film
  • African American History since 1865
  • Media and Society in American History