Michael J. Kramer

20th-Century U.S. Cultural and Intellectual History

Office: 1908 Sheridan Road
Phone: 847-491-8916
E-mail: mjknorthwestern.edu

Michael J. Kramer (Ph.D. University of North Carolina, 2006) is a lecturer in History and American Studies and an Undergraduate Academic Adviser in Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. He specializes in twentieth-century United States cultural and intellectual history with a focus on popular culture, civil society and citizenship, cultural criticism, urban history, transnational history, folklore, and the arts in historical context. Professor Kramer received his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina in 2006 and his B.A. from Columbia University in 1995. He has taught at Loyola University, Lake Forest College, and at George Mason University, where he was the J.N.G. Finley Postdoctoral Fellow in History and Art History in 2006-2007.

In addition to academic advising and teaching, he is currently preparing a book manuscript, "The Civics of Rock: American Popular Music and Global Public Life in the Sixties Counterculture." Future research projects include a biography of the public intellectual Paul Goodman, a cultural history of the 1976 American bicentennial celebrations, a reexamination of the 1968 student uprising at Columbia University, a history of the concept of vernacular culture, and a study of the development of arts criticism in the United States since the late nineteenth century.

As a teacher, he is interested in historical pedagogy, particularly how to teach effective historical writing skills and how to incorporate multimedia materials (film, music, art, performance) into teaching and learning about the past.

In addition to his academic studies, Professor Kramer has worked as a journalist, musician, and farmhand. He maintains a blog of cultural criticism at www.culturerover.com.

Curriculum Vitae