S4E02 Susan Grayzel - Utah State University

Our guest today is First World War gas mask aficionado Susan R. Grayzel. Sue is Professor of History at Utah State University. Before joining the faculty at USU, Sue was Professor of History at the University of Mississippi, where she also served as the Director of the Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies. Sue received her BA in History and Literature from Harvard University and earned an MA and PhD in History at the University of California at Berkeley. She has spent time Across the Pond as the UK Fulbright Distinguished Chair at the University of Leeds, the Ireland Fulbright Inter-Country Lecturer at Maynooth University, and a Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, University of Oxford.

Sue's first book, Women's Identities At War: Gender, Motherhood, and Politics in Britain and France during the First World War (Unversity of North Carolina Press), won the British Council Prize from the North American Conference on British Studies. Sue is also the author of Women and the First World War (Longman), The First World War: A Brief History with Documents (Bedford St. Martin's), and At Home and Under Fire: Air Raids and Culture in Britain from the Great War to the Blitz (Cambridge). She has co-edited two volumes: Gender, Labour, War and Empire: Essays on Modern Britain, with Philippa Levine (Palgrave), and Gender and the Great War, with Tammy Proctor (Oxford). Sue's most recent monograph is The Age of the Gas Mask: How British Civilians Faced the Terrors of Total War (Cambridge). In addition to her monographs and edited volumes, Sue's articles have appeared in the Journal of British Studies, the Journal of Modern History, and the Journal of Women's History, to name a few, and she has written or co-written more than 20 book chapters.

Sue's research has been funded by the American Historical Association, the Arts and Humanities Research Council, and the American Council of Learned Societies, and she is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. She is equally active in service, serving as General Editor for Women, War, and Society: The Women's Work Collection of the Imperial War Museum and as an Advisory Editor for The Encyclopedia of War. She is a former member of the Editorial Board for the Netherlands Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies and Amsterdam University Press's NIOD Series.

Sue is truly a force in our profession and is one of the most generous and approachable scholars you'll ever meet. Join us for a fascinating chat about attending Harvard at age 17, Joni Mitchell's Blue album, gas masks, a prize-winning first book, "Hotty Totty," and other seemingly random subjects! Check it out!

Rec.: 08/08/2023