Christopher Capozzola
Lister Brothers Career Development Associate Professor of History
areas of expertise: soldiers, war, history, u.s. military, citizenship
Christopher Capozzola specializes in the political and cultural history of the United States from 1861 to 1945.
He graduated from Harvard College and competed his PhD at Columbia University in 2002. He has held fellowships from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Carnegie Scholars Program, and the Social Science Research Council. At MIT, he teaches courses in political and legal history, cultural history, and the history of race, gender and class.
Capozzola's research interests are in the history of war and politics in everyday life. His first book, Uncle Sam Wants You: World War I and the Making of the Modern American Citizen was published by Oxford University Press in Spring 2008. The book examines the relationship between citizens, voluntary associations, and the federal government during World War I, through explorations of military conscription and conscientious objection, homefront voluntarism, regulation of enemy aliens, and the emergence of civil liberties movements.
An article based on his research won the Louis Pelzer Memorial Award of the Organization of American Historians and the Biennial Article Prize of the Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. A new project brings together his interests in citizenship, the military and migration. Following the Flag: Soldiers, Citizens, and the Philippines is a transnational history of American soldiers in the Philippines and Filipino soldiers in the U.S. military from 1898 to the war in Iraq. Based on government records, court cases, and oral histories, Following the Flag combines social and political history to explore the history of migration, military institutions, and U.S. foreign relations.
request an interview: Sarah McDonnell | 617-253-8923 | s_mcd@mit.edu