Caitlin Wiesner
- Assistant Professor, History, History Program Director
- School of Liberal Arts
- Maher Hall Room 205
- cwiesner@mercy.edu
- (914) 888-5134
- View My Scholar Website
Dr. Wiesner is an Assistant Professor of History who specializes in the history of women, gender, and sexuality in the 20th century United States. She holds the William F. Olson Chair in Civic and Culture Studies for the 2023-2024 Academic Year.
When she is not teaching or researching, Dr. Wiesner enjoys cooking and trying new foods, hiking, and visiting museums near her home in Central New Jersey.
Ph.D., Rutgers University (2021)
B.A., The College of New Jersey (2015)
Dr. Wiesner's research focuses on gender violence, feminist activism, African American women, and state policy in the late 20th century United States. She is currently working on a book project, tentatively titled Between the Street and the State: Black Women's Anti-Rape Activism Amid the War on Crime, which is under advance contract with the University of Pennsylvania Press. This project examines how Black anti-rape organizers critically engaged both the feminist movement against sexual violence and the federal War on Crime between 1974 and 1994.
Dr. Wiesner teaches a variety of courses within the History Program, including surveys of United States and African American History; upper-division courses on history of race, gender, and sexuality in the United States; and seminars on historical research methods.
Courses Taught:
American History Since 1877 (Fall 2021, 2022, and 2023; Spring 2023)
Introduction to Research Methods (Spring 2022; Fall 2022)
African American History Since Reconstruction (Spring 2022; Fall 2023)
America’s Prison Nation (Spring 2023)
World War II in America (Spring 2022)
The Family in America (Fall 2023)
The American Presidency (Fall 2021)
Senior Seminar in History (Spring 2023)
Books
Between the Street and the State: Black Women’s Anti-Rape Activism Amid the War on Crime, under advance contract with the University of Pennsylvania Press for the Politics and Culture in Modern America Series
Journal Articles
“‘The first thing we cry about is violence’: The National Black Women’s Health Project and the Fight Against Rape and Battering,” Journal of Women’s History, forthcoming Spring 2022.
Book Chapters
“When the War on Rape Met the War on Crime: A Black Women’s Perspective,” forthcoming in The Nursing Clio Reader, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2024.
“In the Shadow of Old Queens: African American Life and Labors in New Brunswick from the End of Slavery to the Industrial Era” in Scarlet and Black: Slavery and Dispossession in Rutgers History, Volume II, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2020.
““An’ I A Poor Slave Yet”: The Precarity of Black Life in New Brunswick, 1766-1835” in Scarlet and Black: Slavery and Dispossession in Rutgers History, Volume I,New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2016.
Book Reviews
Review of The Feminist War on Crime: The Unexpected Role of Women’s Liberation in Mass Incarceration by Aya Gruber, Feminist Formations 33, no. 1 (Spring 2021): 279-282.
Dr. Wiesner's research has been supported by the Graduate School of New Brunswick, the Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis, Rutgers Oral History Archives, Smith College Libraries, the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, the New-York Historical Society, the P.E.O. International, the Warren and Beatrice Susman Endowment, and the Coordinating Council for Women's History.