Susan Pedersen is a Canadian

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human species; as well as the ...

, and James P. Shenton Professor of the Core Curriculum at

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

. Pedersen focuses on 19th and 20th century British history, women's history,

settler colonialism Settler colonialism is a logic and structure of displacement by Settler, settlers, using colonial rule, over an environment for replacing it and its indigenous peoples with settlements and the society of the settlers. Settler colonialism is ...

, and the history of international institutions.

Life

Born a Canadian citizen and raised in

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

, she received her B.A. (1982) from

Radcliffe College Radcliffe College was a Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that was founded in 1879. In 1999, it was fully incorporated into Harvard Colle ...

and both her M.A. (1983) and Ph.D (1989) from

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

, where she was also a professor and served as the university's Dean of Undergraduate Education. In the latter position, she defended the university against charges of excessive

grade inflation Grade inflation (also known as grading leniency) is the general awarding of higher grades for the same quality of work over time, which devalues grades. However, higher average grades in themselves do not prove grade inflation. For this to be grad ...

. Pedersen joined the Columbia faculty in 2003. Among her works is a biography of Eleanor Rathbone. She also recently completed a book on the mandate system of the

League of Nations The League of Nations (LN or LoN; , SdN) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920), Paris Peace ...

; in 2005 she was awarded a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...

to assist with research on this project. Susan Pedersen was Bosch Fellow in Public Policy at the American Academy in Berlin, for Spring 2009. She was elected a fellow of the

British Academy The British Academy for the Promotion of Historical, Philosophical and Philological Studies is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the sa ...

in 2020.

Works

*''The Guardians: The League of Nations and the Crisis of Empire'' (

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

, 2015), winner of the 2015 Cundill Prize in Historical Literature. * Caroline Elkins, Susan Pedersen (eds) ''Settler Colonialism in the Twentieth Century'',

Routledge Routledge ( ) is a British multinational corporation, multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, academic journals, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanit ...

, 2005, , * * * *"National Bodies, Unspeakable Acts: The Sexual Politics of Colonial Policy-making," ''

The Journal of Modern History ''The Journal of Modern History'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering European intellectual, political, and cultural history, published by the University of Chicago Press. Established in 1929, the journal covers events from appro ...

'' Vol. 63, No. 4, December 1991 *"Gender, Welfare, and Citizenship in Britain during the Great War," ''

The American Historical Review ''The American Historical Review'' is a quarterly academic history journal published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical Association, for which it is an official publication. It targets readers interested in all period ...

'' Vol. 95, No. 4, October 1990 *"Hannah More Meets Simple Simon: Tracts, Chapbooks, and Popular Culture in Late Eighteenth-Century England," ''

Journal of British Studies The publication of the North American Conference on British Studies, ''The Journal of British Studies'' is an academic journal aimed at scholars of British culture from the Middle Ages through the present. The journal was co-founded in 1961 by G ...

'' 25 (January 1986): 84-113. *"The Messiah of Cadoxton,"

Granta ''Granta'' is a literary magazine and publisher in the United Kingdom whose mission centres on its "belief in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and non-fiction, and the story's supreme ability to describe, illuminate and make ...

168, Spring 2024.

References

External links

NPR interview with Susan Pedersen on grade inflation at Harvard
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pedersen, Susan 1959 births Living people Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Columbia University faculty 20th-century Canadian historians Radcliffe College alumni 21st-century Canadian historians Fellows of the Royal Historical Society Fellows of the British Academy