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Coming Back to Grinnell
by Sarah Purcell ‘92, Assistant Professor
of History
Since I arrived in town six weeks ago,
many people have asked me whether it’s "good to be
back" and whether I "ever wanted to come back to Grinnell"
as a faculty member. The answer to both has been a resounding
"yes!"
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When I graduated from Grinnell in 1992, I
knew that I wanted to be a history professor, and I always hoped
that it would be at someplace as great as Grinnell. I only dreamed
briefly that it might be at Grinnell itself, since no one has
the right to expect such luck in the current Ph.D. job-market. |
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I’m also really happy to expand my
teaching to the colonial and revolutionary periods and to get
to do so many seminars. It’s a thrill to be in such a good
department with people whom I personally know to be great teachers! |
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I spent five years in graduate school at
Brown University, where I studied Early America, U.S. Gender
and Women’s History, and Early-Modern England and earned
an A.M. and a Ph.D. Then for three years I taught at Central
Michigan University, on a big faculty where I was the "early
republic" and "Civil War" person and where I taught
everything from big intro classes to small groups of graduate
students.
I’m really excited to be able to teach
smaller, more intensive classes full of Grinnell students. I’m
also really happy to expand my teaching to the colonial and revolutionary
periods and to get to do so many seminars. It’s a thrill
to be in such a good department with people whom I personally
know to be great teachers!
I have wide research interests, whose main
common theme is the examination of the ways people try to gain
access to political power by harnessing public culture. The book
based on my dissertation
Sealed with Blood: National Identity
and Public Memory of the Revolutionary War, 1775-1825 will be coming out sometime in the next few years,
and I just co-authored a reference book with the intimidating
title The Encyclopedia of Battles in North America, 1517-1915,
which came out this summer. Look for the paperback at a store
near you soon! I’m also working on articles on Mary Austin
Holley, an early proponent of Texas colonization, and on the
Bunker Hill Monument and public art.
Look for my new course offerings! Come
by and introduce yourself; I’m in Carnegie 409, and I love
to talk about history.
I’ve changed a lot since I left campus
eight years ago, and it’s much different to be a faculty
member than a student, but any way you look at it it’s great
to be "back."
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