Thomas Bender will speak on "American History in Global Context" from noon to 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 27, in the Gamble Room in the Rush Rhees Library on the University of Rochester's River Campus. The brown bag seminar will include an opportunity for a question-and-answer period.
Bender is University Professor of Humanities, professor of history, and director of the International Center for Advanced Studies at New York University. His work has explored intellectual and cultural history and cities, and he is currently examining American history in the light of globalization and awareness of multicultural nations. As editor of Rethinking American History in a Global Age (2002), he presented fresh perspectives on traditional themes and stages in American history in a wider transnational context.
At New York University, Bender teaches courses on democracy in America, the politics of knowledge in the United States, modern city culture, and intellectual and cultural history, and this year is teaching a new course titled "American History in Transnational and Global Perspective." His books include The Education of Historians for the Twenty-first Century (2004), The Transformation of American Academic Culture (1998), Budapest and New York (1994), and New York Intellect: A History of Intellectual Life in New York, from 1750 to the Beginnings of Our Own Time (1987).
Bender has been honored with the Organization of American Historians' Frederick Jackson Turner Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has recently completed two large-scale projects through the International Center for Advanced Studies at New York University: The first examines cities and urban history comparatively and in a global context, while the second focuses on the discipline of history. He is co-author of and is currently working on a book tentatively titled In the American Province.
Bender's lecture is co-sponsored by the Department of History and the Cluster in Global Studies. For more information, contact (585) 275-2052.