Yale Bulletin and Calendar

October 26, 2001

Volume 30, Number 8

Cynthia E. Russett

Historian Cynthia Russett is
appointed Larned Professor

Cynthia E. Russett, the newly appointed Larned Professor of History, focuses her research and teaching on American intellectual life in the 20th century, the history of American women and the intellectual history of the Gilded Age, among other topics.

A particular interest for Russett has been the effects of science on non-scientific culture. Her 1989 book "Sexual Science: The Victorian Construction of Womanhood," which examines the ways in which male scientists and thinkers of the Victorian era attempted to prove that women were inferior to men, won the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians Annual Book Award.

Russett's other books include "Darwin in America: The Intellectual Response, 1865-1912," "The Concept of Equilibrium in American Social Thought" and "The Extraordinary Mrs. R.: A Friend Remembers Mrs. Roosevelt" (with William Levy). She is coauthor, with Tracy Schier, of the forthcoming "Beyond the Seven Sisters: Colleges Founded by Women's Religious Orders" and coedited the two-volume "Second to None: A Documentary History of American Women." She is currently engaged in a study of women intellectuals and the conditions of intellectual life for American women in the post-World War II era.

The historian's numerous articles and book reviews have appeared in such publications as the Journal of Conflict Resolution, the History of Education Quarterly, the American Historical Review, Isis and the New England Quarterly, among others.

A graduate of Trinity College in Washington, D.C., Russett earned her M.A. and Ph.D. from Yale in 1959 and 1964, respectively. She won the George Washington Eggleston Prize for best dissertation in American history in 1964. She joined the Yale faculty as a lecturer in 1967 and was promoted to a full professorship in 1990.

Russett serves as director of the Senior Essay Program in the Department of History. She was director of graduate studies in history 1992-1994. She has served on numerous University committees and is currently a member of the Special Students Advisory Committee, the Women's Studies Council, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Standing Committee on Grievances, the Graduate School Committee on Sexual Harassment and the Committee on the Economic Status of the Faculty, among others. She is a member of the executive committee of the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute and is chair of the Yale College Executive Committee.

Russett was a fellow of the Whitney ,Humanities Center 1992-1995 and was a visiting scholar at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in Social Science and Humanities in 1984. She is a member of the American Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians and the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians.

T H I SW E E K ' SS T O R I E S

Study shows diet is linked to growing form of cancer

'Architecture or Revolution' recalls years of turbulence, innovation

Locke recalls Yale years, defends affirmative action in Chubb Lecture

Alumni to ponder intersection of law and technology

Legal scholar John Langbein is named Sterling Professor

Historian Cynthia Russett is appointed Larned Professor

Conference honors economist William Brainard

Environmental Science Center opening Oct. 26

Event to celebrate 'Cultures of Native America'

Drama school stages Chekhov's 'compassionate meditation'

Yale Opera students to perform scenes from famous operas

'Practical Logic' series opens with talk on challenge of intersexuality

Talks about Sept. 11 aftermath to focus on questions of gender

Symposium to explore 'material culture' of Colonial New York

Project teaches Head Start parents about computers, cancer

Conservation of biodiversity in China is subject of talk

Stephen Bright to speak at tea

Getting the low-down on downtown

Honoring an 'unsung hero'

Campus Notes