Faculty Guide

Title

Harry S. Truman Professor of American Civilization

History
Women's and Gender Studies

Expertise

North America before ca. 1830, cultural history, the writing of history.

Profile

JANE KAMENSKY earned her B.A. and Ph.D. in History from Yale University, and has taught at Brandeis since 1993. She offers courses in colonial American history, women's and family history, and the writing of history that have been recognized with a university-wide award for excellence in teaching. Her scholarship has been supported by grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History at Harvard University, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Pew Charitable Trusts, and the Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Studies.

Her major publications include THE EXCHANGE ARTIST: A Tale of High-Flying Speculation and America's First Banking Collapse (Viking, 2008), a Finalist for the 2009 George Washington Book Prize; GOVERNING THE TONGUE: The Politics of Speech in Early New England (Oxford University Press, 1997), and THE COLONIAL MOSAIC: American Women, 1600-1760 (Oxford University Press, 1995). BLINDSPOT (Spiegel & Grau / Random House, 2008), her novel, jointly written with Jill Lepore, is a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice and a Boston Globe best-seller. She is co-editor of the OXFORD HANDBOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION (2012). Her next book, COPLEY: A LIFE IN COLOR, will be published by W.W. Norton.

Awards and Honors

Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Sawyer Seminar on the Comparative Study of Cultures, co-Principal Investigator (with Susan S. Lanser, Department of English) (2012)

Innovative Course Design Prize, American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (2011)

Research Support Grant, Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art (London) (2011)

Elected Fellow, Society of American Historians (2009)

Finalist, George Washington Book Prize (for Exchange Artist) (2009)

Andrew W. Mellon Foundation New Directions Fellowship (2006)

Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, Grant (2006)

Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies, Fellowship (2006)

Dean of Arts and Sciences Mentoring Award (2005)

Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History, Fellowship (2004 - 2005)

National Endowment for the Humanties University Teachers Fellowship (2004 - 2005)

American Council of Learned Societies Fellow (declined) (1996)

Bunting Fellowship, Radcliffe College (1996)

National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow (1996)

Pew Faculty Fellow in the History of American Religion (1996)

Michael L. Walzer `56 Award for Teaching (1995 - 1996)

Courses Taught

ENG/HIST	118b	London from Restoration to Regency: People, Culture, City
GSAS	250c	Rethinking the Age of Revolution
GSAS	301d	Interdisciplinary Prospectus Seminar
HIST	200a	Colloquium in American History
HIST	204b	Writing History
SYS	1c	How Do We Know What We Know?
USEM	14a	Imagining the Other: Encounters in North America from Columbus to the Revolution
WMGS	198a	Women's and Gender Studies Research Seminar

Scholarship

Kamensky, Jane. Copley: A Life in Color. New York: W. W. Norton, 2015. (forthcoming)

Kamensky, Jane, Carol Sheriff, David Blight, Howard Chudacoff, Frederick Logevall, Beth Bailey. A People and a Nation. 10 ed. Boston: Wadsworth/ Cengage, 2013. (forthcoming)

Kamensky, Jane, Edward G. Gray, ed. Oxford Handbook of the American Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.

Kamensky, Jane. "Review Essay: Facing the Nation." Reviews in American History 2012

Kamensky, Jane; Gray, Edward G., ed. The Oxford Handbook of the American Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.

Kamensky, Jane. "Driving Sideways." Yale Alumni Magazine January/ February 2011: 52-57.

Kamensky, Jane. "Novelties: A Historian's Field Notes from Fiction." Historically Speaking XII. 2 (2011): 2-6.

Kamensky, Jane. "Review Essay: Liberties of Empire." William and Mary Quarterly vol. 68:3 July 2011: 481-489.

Kamensky, Jane and Jill Lepore. "Footnotes to Fiction." OAH Newsletter February 2009.

Kamensky, Jane. "A Clerk's Tale." Financial History Winter 2009: 12-15.

Kamensky, Jane. "Boom and Bust: It's the American Way." Los Angeles Times 20 July 2008

Kamensky, Jane, written jointly with Jill Lepore. Blindspot: A Novel. Random House Reader's Circle paperback, December 2009 ed. New York: Spiegel & Grau / Random House, 2008.

Kamensky, Jane. "Salem Obsessed, or, Plus Ça Change." William and Mary Quarterly LXV. 3 (2008): 391-400.

Kamensky, Jane. The Exchange Artist: A Tale of High-Flying Speculation and America's First Banking Collapse. Paperback, 2009 ed. New York: Viking/Penguin, 2008.

Kamensky, Jane. Governing the Tongue: The Politics of Speech in Early New England. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Kamensky, Jane. The Colonial Mosaic: American Women, 1600-1760. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.