Kathleen Canning joined Rice University School of Humanities as Dean and Andrew Mellon Professor of History in January 2018. Canning’s major field of scholarly research is modern European history with an emphasis on modern Germany and European history of gender and sexuality, citizenship, state, labor and social movements in the late 19th and 20th centuries. Her current book project is entitled Citizenship Effects: Gender and Sexual Crisis in the Aftermath of War and Revolution in Germany. Canning was the North American co-editor of Gender & History (1998-2002) and has served as the editor of the University of Michigan Press book series on Social History, Popular Culture and Politics in Germany since 2011. Among Canning’s awards are a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for University Teachers and fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, the Stanford Humanities Center, the German Marshall Fund, the Max-Planck-Institute für Geschichte in Göttingen, Germany, and the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies.
Canning’s major field of scholarly research is modern European history with an emphasis on modern Germany and European history of citizenship, gender and family, state, social welfare and labor in the late 19th and 20th centuries. Her latest research seeks to compare and contrast the aftermaths of the two world wars from the perspective of the democracies each produced in 1918-19 and 1945-48. With a B.A. in history from the University of Oregon, a Fulbright Fellowship that allowed her to earn an M.A. in history (and minors in sociology and political science) from Ruprecht-Karls-Universitat in Heidelberg, and a Ph.D. and an M.A. in history from Johns Hopkins University, Canning feels very strongly that history is so important for the present.
Among Canning’s awards are a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for University Teachers and fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, the Stanford Humanities Center, the Max-Planck-Institute fur Geschichte in Gottingen, Germany, and the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies.
