Erin Wuebker

Professor of History & Women’s Studies, Queens College, Graduate Center Alum

Historian of public health, sexuality, visual culture, gender, and race. “Taking the Venereal out of Venereal Disease: The Public Health Campaign Against Syphilis, 1934-1945” (PhD Dissertation)

Education

The Graduate Center, CUNY, New York, NY (current)
Ph.D., History (February 2015), M. Phil., History (February 2012)
Major: US History, Minor: Modern European History
Advisor: Gerald Markowitz

Beloit College, Beloit, WI (2007)
B.A., History, Art History

Interests

Research Interests

Dissertation: Taking the Venereal out of Venereal Disease: The Public Health Campaign against Syphilis and the Cultural Meanings of VD, 1934-1945

Other: [Health] and [medicine] during the [New Deal]; [history] of [public health], [gender], [race], and [sexuality]; depictions of health and disease in [visual culture]; social history of [advertising]; history of [prostitution] and [venereal disease] in the [United States] and [Europe]; [New Deal] politics and [1930s culture]; [race], [civil rights], and medicine.

Teaching Interests


[US History], social and cultural history, [women’s and gender history], history of [public health] and [medicine], US [visual culture], the [New Deal], World Wars, [civil rights].

Experience

Adjunct Lecturer, Queens College, Departments of Women & Gender Studies, History (2013-current)

History of the Family in the United States
(1 section, enrollment 25)
Upper-level elective history course covering the colonial period through the present.

Introduction to Women’s Studies (6 sections, enrollment 25)

Required course for women’s studies majors and minors. Content is a general survey of US women’s history from the 17th to the 20th centuries. Writing intensive.

US Women’s History, 1880 to Present (2 section, enrollment 12)
Six-week upper-level history course required for history majors with a concentration in women & gender or an elective for other concentrations. Elective for graduate students in the masters program for adolescent social studies education.

Science, Culture, and Public Health (1 section, enrollment 22)

College writing course focused on helping students master the conventions of history writing. Readings and assignments are related to themes in the history of US public health. College writing 1 prerequisite, no history prerequisites. Recommended for history majors.

The American Revolution and the Foundation of the Republic, 1763-1800 (1 section, enrollment 23)
Upper-level history course required for history majors with a concentration in US history or elective for other concentrations.

American History, 1607, 1607-1865 (2 sections, enrollment 50)
Survey history course for students in any field, no prerequisite. Required for majors with a concentration in US or European history.

Museum Scholar, Museum of the City of New York (2013-current)

Develop and lead tours of permanent and rotating exhibitions on New YOrk history and culture for adult groups.

Graduate Teaching Fellow & Adjunct Lecturer, Hunter College, Department of History (2009-2013)

The United States, Reconstruction to the Present (10 sections, enrollment 35)

Writing-intensive General Education Requirement survey history course for students in any field, no prerequisites. One six-week summer session, non writing-intensive (enrollment 15).

The United States, Colonial Era to the Civil War (6 sections, enrollment 35)
Writing-intensive General Education Requirement survey history course for students in any field, no prerequisites.

Writing Fellow, CUNY School of Law, Legal Writing Center (2012-2013)

Worked one-on-one with students on their writing. Met with faculty to develop collaborative writing projects. Oversaw miscellaneous tasks such as Writing Center social media accounts.

projects & presentations

Venereal Disease Visual History Archive, http://vdarchive.newmedialab.cuny.edu/ (ongoing)

Digital archive project compiling visual culture materials related to VD. In cooperation with the CUNY New Media Lab.

Medicine, Morality, & Microbes: Sex Ed, Public Health, STI Control, and Adolescents in US History

New York Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine, New York, NY (June 2015)

Prostitution, Prophylaxis, and Pick-ups: Venereal Disease Control during WWII

Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association, New Orleans, LA (April 2015)

Digital Additions & Transformations: Venereal Disease Visual History Archive

Graduate Student Conference, The Graduate Center, CUNY, New York, NY (March 2015)


‘The Next Great Plague to Go’: Syphilis & Scientific Progress in Popular Visual Culture, 1934-1945

Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association, Chicago, IL (April 2014)
Graduate Student Conference, The Graduate Center, CUNY, New York, NY (March 2014)

Taking the Venereal Out of Venereal Disease: The Great Depression, the New Deal, and the Cultural Meanings of VD

Midwest Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association, St. Louis, MO (October 2013)

‘The Next Great Plague to Go’: Scientific Progress, Modern Medicine, and the Cultural Meanings of Venereal Disease, 1936-1945

Northeast Popular Culture Association, Colchester, VT (October 2013)

Fellowships, Awards, & Service

CUNY New Media Lab Public Health and History Award (GC, 2014)
History Department Election Committee (GC, 2013-2014)

Enhanced Chancellors’ Fellowship (GC, 2008-2013)
University Fellowship (GC, 2008-2009)
History Department Honors (Beloit, 2007)
Wright Prize for Art and Art History (Beloit, 2006)