Visiting Scholar: Dr. Susan Grayzel

Public Lectures of Dr. Grayzel

Thurs, Oct. 19, “How Can Gender Help Us Understand the History of Modern War,” 11:10 a.m., Wilson Hall 127 (co-sponsored by the Honors Forum)

Thurs., Oct. 19, “Defining the Civilian in Modern War: Women and the Invention of the Home Front in the Great War,” 7:00 p.m., Roberts Recital Hall

Background on Dr. Grayzel:

In October 2006, the UAH History Department is bringing historian Dr. Susan Grayzel to campus in conjunction with HY 390, “Women in Modern European History,” taught by Dr. Molly Johnson. Dr. Grayzel will give two public lectures on women and modern warfare. She will also discuss one of her books, Women and the First World War, with Dr. Johnson’s HY 390 students, who are reading her book as one of their class readings. In addition, she will meet informally with all interested history graduate and undergraduate students for a brown bag lunch.

Dr. Grayzel’s visit will help raise student and community awareness of the interrelationship between the history of the military and modern warfare and the history of women and gender. Gender studies have emerged as an important tool in reinterpreting traditional fields of historical inquiry, and Dr. Grayzel has successfully employed this approach to reinterpret military history, which has been one of the most tradition-bound fields of historical research.

Dr. Grayzel has distinguished herself as a historian of twentieth-century Europe, with a special focus on women’s and gender history and the comparative history of Britain and France. She has written two books, Women’s Identities at War: Gender, Motherhood, and Politics in Britain and France during the First World War (University of North Carolina, 1999), and Women and the First World War (Longman, 2002). Women’s Identities at War won the British Council Prize of the North American Conference on British Studies for the best book in the field of nineteenth- and twentieth-century British Studies by a North American author in 2000. Dr. Grayzel has also published numerous articles in journals including the Journal of Modern History, International History Review, Rural History, Journal for Peace and Justice Studies, and Twentieth-Century British History, and she has contributed essays to five edited books. She has also presented papers at numerous conferences including the North American Conference on British Studies, the Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, the Society for French Studies, and the American Historical Association.

The history of the air raid and its impact on understandings of gender, heroism, and citizenship in twentieth-century Britain is the focus of Dr. Grayzel’s present research. She is completing a book-length project tentatively entitled “At Home and Under Fire: Gender and the Civilian Experience of Air Warfare in Britain, 1914-1942.”

The History Department would like to thank the Distinguished Speakers Series, sponsored by the Office of the Provost and the Faculty Senate, for helping sponsor Dr. Grayzel’s visit. We also thank the Women’s Studies Program, the Honors Program, and the Office of Continuing Education for providing support.