Brenna Greer

Brenna Wynn Greer is an Associate Professor of History at Wellesley College. She is a cultural historian of race, gender, citizenship, and culture in the twentieth-century United States, who explores historical connections between capitalism, social movements, and media and visual culture. Her first book, Represented: The Black Imagemakers Who Reimagined African American Citizenship, recipient of the 2020 Harry Shaw and Katrina Hazard-Donald Award for Outstanding Work in African-American Popular Culture Studies, examines the historical circumstances that made the media representation of black citizenship good business in the post-World War II era. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, Nation, Daily Mail, Columbia Journalism Review, and Enterprise & Society, as well as several edited volumes. Dr. Greer is currently at work on her second book, Issues of Color, which examines the postwar development of black commercial publishing and its significance within U.S. culture and black life. This work exemplifies her increasing turn toward Book Studies as a method for understanding the past experiences, contributions, thought, and creativity of, especially, marginalized groups in the past.

Greer has received support for her research from prominent organizations such as the Rare Books School, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Woodrow Wilson National Foundation, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. As Wellesley faculty, she held the Knafel Assistant Professor of Social Sciences chair and has been awarded the Anna and Samuel Pinanski Teaching Award. She teaches topics in twentieth century U.S. and African American history, including: Constructing “America” and Americans” in U.S. History since 1865; The Cold War United States; The United States in the World War II Era; U.S. Consumer Culture and Citizenship; The Civil Rights Movement Reconsidered; Fashion Matters: Dress, Style, and Politics in U.S. History; Telling Stories: The Politics of Narrating the Black Freedom Struggle; Black Lives Matter in Print & Pictures; ; and The Big Picture: U.S. History through Iconic Photography.

COURSES

HIST204 The United States History since 1865

HIST220 United States Consumer Culture and Citizenship

HIST249 Cold War Culture and Politics in the United States

HIST252 The Civil Rights Movement Reconsidered

HIST254 The United States in the World War II Era

HIST314 Seminar: Fashion Matters: Dress, Style, and Politics in U.S. History

HIST340 Seminar: Seeing Black: African Americans and United States Visual Culture

HIST341 Seminar: Telling Stories: The Politics of Narrating the Black Freedom Struggle

Education

• B.A., Beloit College
• M.A., University of Wisconsin-Madison
• Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison