Michael Brown Headshot

Michael Brown

Associate Professor

Department of History
College of Liberal Arts

585-475-2438
Office Location

Michael Brown

Associate Professor

Department of History
College of Liberal Arts

Education

BS, Cornell University; M.Sc., London School of Economics and Political Science (United Kingdom); Ph.D., University of Rochester

Bio

Research interests: American intellectual and cultural history, public history, Rochester history

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585-475-2438

Areas of Expertise

Select Scholarship

Full Length Book
Brown, Michael J. Hope and Scorn: Eggheads, Experts, and Elites in American Politics. 1 ed. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2020. Print.
Book Chapter
Brown, Michael J. "Commemoration and Contestation: Susan B. Anthony, Frederick Douglass, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama." Nasty Women and Bad Hombres: Gender and Race in the 2016 US Presidential Election. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2018. 121-134. Print.
Journal Paper
Brown, Michael, Rebecca A. R. Edwards, and Tina Olsin Lent. "Kate Gleason: Introducing a Twentieth-Century Businesswoman to Twenty-First Century Students." Seneca Falls Dialogues Journal 2. Fall (2017): 1-23. Web.
Published Review
Brown, Michael. Rev. of Separate but Equal? Individual and Community since the Enlightenment, by Richard Herr. Journal of Interdisciplinary History 2017: 397-398. Print.
Brown, Michael. Rev. of DIY Detroit: Making Do in a City without Services, by Kimberley Kinder. Consumption Markets & Culture 2017: 585-587. Web.
Invited Article/Publication
Brown, Michael. "Politics of Style, Politics as Style." Reviews in American History. (2016). Print.

Currently Teaching

HIST-101
3 Credits
How do historians understand and interpret the past? What tools do historians use to uncover the past? What does it mean to think historically? History is both an art and a science, and in this course, we will learn the methods, practices, and tools used to create historical knowledge. You will learn how to read texts with an eye toward their argument, how to ask historical questions, how to conduct historical research, and how to write a historical narrative. At the discretion of the instructor, the class may use examples from a particular historical era to ground course concepts in a specific historical tradition.
HIST-125
3 Credits
In late 1994, the B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay, the airplane that dropped the first atomic bomb detonated in combat on Hiroshima, Japan, arrived at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. The museum’s staff faced important questions: Would they celebrate the Enola Gay as the weapon that ended the Pacific War? Would they exhibit it as a technological artifact that marked the dawn of nuclear warfare? Would they remind museum visitors that its potent cargo ended the lives of tens of thousands of people? These were difficult professional questions for public historians; they were deeply ethical questions too. Much of the past that public historians interpret is the source of great debate in the present. Since the way history is remembered shapes public policy, community identity, and collective understanding, the ethical stakes for public history are high. This course will examine notable controversies in American public history and develop students’ critical perspectives on them. Students will generate answers to the questions: What are the ethics of doing public history? What happens when public historians remember, but the community wants to forget? When stakeholders (e.g., historic site, community, historians, sponsors) collide, whose stories and whose interests prevail? Who decides? How are those decisions made? Who is allowed to tell history? To whom or to what are public historians responsible?
HIST-221
3 Credits
Public history is using the research-based methods and techniques of historians to conduct historical work in the public sphere. If you've gone to a museum, conducted an oral history, researched your old house, or learned from an interpreter at a park or historic site, you've seen public history in action. This course will introduce students to the wide variety of careers in public history, and will examine the challenges and opportunities that come with doing history in, with, and for the public.
HIST-325
3 Credits
Many more people learn history from museums than from textbooks. What is it that is so special about encountering the real thing in a museum? Why are Dorothy's Ruby Slippers the most visited artifact in the National Museum of American History? Do history museums themselves have an important history? Join us as we investigate the connections between our history, our museums, and the material artifacts that tell historical stories.
MUSE-221
3 Credits
Public history is using the research-based methods and techniques of historians to conduct historical work in the public sphere. If you've gone to a museum, conducted an oral history, researched your old house, or learned from an interpreter at a park or historic site, you've seen public history in action. This course will introduce students to the wide variety of careers in public history, and will examine the challenges and opportunities that come with doing history in, with, and for the public.

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