Title
Professor of Sociology, and Women's and Gender Studies
History
Sociology
Women's and Gender Studies
Expertise
Contemporary families; historical sociology; sociology of gender, class & race/ethnicity; community studies.
Profile
Professor Karen V. Hansen combines sociology and history in her research and teaching. Her latest project, ENCOUNTER ON THE GREAT PLAINS: SCANDINAVIAN SETTERS AND THE DISPOSSESSION OF DAKOTA INDIANS, 1890-1930, has received support from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. ENCOUNTER explores life on a remote Indian reservation in the early twentieth century where Scandinavians began homesteading, with the sanction of the U.S. government. In effect, they dispossessed Dakota Sioux while living as their neighbors ON the reservation. Based on oral histories with elders and analysis of landownership records, the book explores the land taking and in its wake, the coexistence of two profoundly different peoples as they sought to maintain their language, practice their culture, and honor loyalties to more than one nation.
Professor Hansen’s scholarship also focuses on contemporary families. She authored NOT-SO-NUCLEAR FAMILIES: CLASS, GENDER, AND NETWORKS OF CARE, which received the William J. Goode Book Award, Honorable Mention, and was a finalist for the C. Wright Mills Award. Combining theoretical frameworks and rich empirical accounts, she has edited two anthologies with Anita Ilta Garey, AT THE HEART OF WORK AND FAMILY and FAMILIES IN THE U.S.
Degrees
University of California, Berkeley, Ph.D.
University of California, Santa Barbara, M.A.
University of California, Santa Barbara, B.A.
Awards and Honors
Visiting Scholar, Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History, Harvard University (2013)
Fellow, Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History, Harvard University (2012)
Faculty Scholar, Student-Scholar Partnership Program (2009)
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (2006)
William J. Goode Book Award, Honorable Mention, American Sociological Association, Family Section (2006)
Dean of Arts and Sciences Mentoring Award for outstanding mentoring of students in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (2005)
Finalist, C.Wright Mills Award for Not-So-Nuclear Families: Class, Gender, and Networks of Care (2005)
Associate Senior Researcher, Berkeley Center for Working Families, University of California, Berkeley (1999 - 2000)
National Endowment for Humanities Fellowship (1999)
Norwegian Royal Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Emigration Fund of 1975 (1998)
Visiting Scholar, Henry A. Murray Research Center, Radcliffe College (1994 - 1996)
American Philosophical Society Grant (1992)
Marver and Sheva Bernstein Faculty Fellowship (1992 - 1993)
Andrew W. Mellon Faculty Fellowship in the Humanities, Harvard University (1991 - 1992)
Bunting Institute Fellow, Radcliffe College (1991 - 1992)
National Endowment for Humanities (summer) (1991)
Woodrow Wilson Research Grant in Women's Stuides (1988)
Gertrude Jaeger Prize, Most Outstanding Graduate Student Essay Written by a Woman in Sociology, University of California, Berkeley (1987 - 1988)
University of California-Berkeley Distinguished Teaching Assistant Award (1984 - 1985)
Courses Taught
| AMST/SOC | 125a | History of United States Feminisms |
| GSAS | 302d | Interdisciplinary Dissertation Seminar |
| SOC | 130a | Families, Caregiving and Kinship |
| SOC | 131b | Biography, Gender, and Society |
| SOC | 132b | Social Perspectives on Motherhood and Mothering |
| SOC | 199b | Senior Capstone Seminar: Sociology in the World |
| SOC | 206b | Advanced Topics in Family Studies |
| SOC | 210b | Gender, Class, and Race |
Scholarship
