Western Civilizations

Joshua Cole (PhD, University of California, Berkeley) is professor of history at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. His research focuses on gender and the history of population sciences, colonial violence, and the politics of memory in nineteenth- and twentieth-century France, Germany, and Algeria. His first book was The Power of Large Numbers: Population, Politics, and Gender in Nineteenth-Century France (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000). Carol Symes is an Associate Professor of history and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the history department at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where she has won the top teaching award in the College of Liberal Arts and Science. Her main areas of study include medieval Europe, especially France and England; cultural history; history of information media and communication technologies; history of theatre. Her first book was A Common Stage: Theater and Public Life in Medieval Arras (2007). (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2007).