Laura Wittern-Keller, Ph.D.

Visiting Assistant Professor of history, University at Albany (SUNY)

8545 Galloway National Drive

Wilmington, NC 28411

Website: http://www.albany.edu/~lw1295/                                                                           LWittern@albany.edu

 

 

Education:

 

Ph.D. in American history, University at Albany (SUNY), December 2003

▪ Comprehensive examination areas included twentieth-century U.S. public policy, legal history, nineteenth-

and twentieth-century U.S. culture, and film studies

             ▪ Dissertation: “Freedom of the Screen: Legal Challenges to State Film Censorship, 1915-1981.” Dissertation

directed by Richard F. Hamm and Julian Zelizer                                                           

Distinguished Dissertation award, University at Albany College of Arts & Sciences

M.A., history, cum laude, Pennsylvania State University, graduate teaching assistant

B.A., history and English, magna cum laude, State University of New York at Albany

 

Awards/Honors:

 

2008— co-authored book, The Miracle Case, named December Book of the Month by the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression.

 

2007 Annual Archive Excellence in Research Award, awarded by New York State Archives and the New York State Board of Regents (http://iarchives.nysed.gov/PressReleases/prDetailServlet?id=273)

 

2005-2006 UNC Wilmington Lecturer of the Year

 

2003 Distinguished Dissertation Award, University at Albany College of Arts & Sciences

 

2003 Sherry Penney Prize, University at Albany, “bestowed annually on an outstanding woman graduate

student in history”

 

2000 Phi Alpha Theta Prize for “Bad Case/Good Case: The Outlaw and The Miracle as Legal Tests of Film

Censorship”

 

“With Distinction” designation on doctoral comprehensive examination, March 2002

 

Publications:

 

Books:

 

Freedom of the Screen: Legal Challenges to State Film Censorship, 1915-1981, University Press of Kentucky, January 2008 (http://www.kentuckypress.com/viewbook.cfm?Category_ID=1&Group=42&ID=1418)

 

The Miracle Case: Film Censorship and the Supreme Court, co-authored with Raymond J. Haberski, Jr., University Press of Kansas Landmark Law Cases series, October 2008 (http://www.kansaspress.ku.edu/witmir.html)

 

Articles and reviews:

 

Journal of American History review of Banned in Kansas by Gerald R. Butters, vol. 95. no. 3 (December 2008).

 

Journal of Popular Film and Television book review of Children, Cinema and Censorship by Sarah J. Smith, forthcoming.

 

“Freedman v. Maryland,” Encyclopedia of the First Amendment, CQ Press, 2008.

 

Journal of American History review of documentary Transforming America, , vol. 92, no. 3 (December 2005), 1082-84.  Available online at: http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/jah/92.3/mr_1.html

 

H-Net Book review, American Catholic Lay Movements and Trans-Atlantic Social Reform in the Progressive Period by Deirdre Moloney

(http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=H-Catholic&month=0402&week=c&msg=SpAir1j65LJMattYTGbVmA&user=&pw=)

 

“The New York State Motion Picture Division,” Encyclopedia of New York State (2004)

 

Film & History book  review, The Cinema of Generation X, by Peter Hanson, , volume 33.2, 2003

http://www.h-net.msu.edu/~filmhis/back_issues/issue_toc/toc_33_2.htm

 

“Freedom of the Screen: Joseph Burstyn and The Miracle,” Spring 2002 New York Archives Magazine

Available online at http://www.archives.nysed.gov/apt/magazine/archivesmag_past.shtml#Spring2002Feature

 

Other Academic Activities:

 

Peer reviewer, Yale University Press, Fall 2009

Peer reviewer, University of Alabama Press, Spring 2009

 

Area Chair, “The City in the Documentary Tradition,” Film and History conference, November 2006

 

Consultant to 2006 documentary, This Film is Not Yet Rated, directed by Kirby Dick. For more information, see http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/this_film_is_not_yet_rated/  and http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0493459/

 

Managing editor, Peace & Change: A Journal of Peace Research, published by the Peace History Society and the

Consortium on Peace Research, January 1999-January 2000 (one-year appointment)

 

Conference co-coordinator, Researching New York: Perspectives on Empire State History, 1999 and 2000

 

President, 2000-2001, University at Albany History Graduate Student Organization, vice president, 1999-2000

 

Courses Taught:

 

UNC Wilmington: US History to 1865, US History 1865 to present, Law & Society: The Supreme Court in U.S. History (senior seminar), Practice of History (research methods), History of the American City

 

Castleton State College, Castleton, Vermont: History of  Film Censorship, Media and Politics

 

University at Albany: American Political and Social History, Reconstruction to present, U.S Political History from Roosevelt to Reagan, Graduate Readings Seminar in U.S. Public Policy Historiography, Graduate Readings Seminar in the Politics of Race and Immigration, U.S. Constitutional History, Graduate Research Seminar in U.S. Public Policy History, and Graduate Research Seminar in Politics and the Law.

 

 

Presentations and Conference Papers:

 

“Cinematic Liberty & the First Amendment,” panel presentation sponsored by the Freedom Forum at the Newseum, Washington, DC. September 2008

 

“The Politics of Censorship,” Constitution Day speech at Albertus Magnus College, New Haven, CT, September 2008.

 

“Shifting Boundaries: Public, Private, and Media Policy in the United States, 1930-1973” panel presentation at the 2008 Policy History Conference, May 2008

 

Roundtable on Movies and the 1960s: Organization of American Historians (OAH) annual conference, March 2008

 

“Freedom of the Screen: the Movie That Shocked New York,” sponsored by the New York State Archives Partnership Trust, April 7, 2008

 

“Sandra Day O’Connor,” UNC Wilmington Pathways Great Women series, April 2007

 

“State Film Censors, the Catholic Church, and the ACLU in the Cold War,” Film, Television and the 1950s conference, Plymouth State University (NH), 7 October 2006

 

“Above the Law/Beyond the Law/Upholding the Law: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief,” Constitution Day, UNC Wilmington, 18 September 2006

 

“72,000 Films: Under the Censors’ Scissors” keynote speech, Phi Alpha Theta annual banquet, UNC Wilmington, 11 April 2006

 

“When the Supreme Court Speaks With Many Voices: The 1959 Lady Chatterley’s Lover Decision,” presented at annual meeting of the North Carolina Association of Historians, 17 March 2006

 

“From Philadelphia to Baghdad: The Philadelphia Constitutional Convention, 1787,” Constitution Day presentation, UNC Wilmington, September 2005

 

"Fighting For Freedom of the Screen: The Legal Battle over State Film Censorship, 1930-1965,” presented at

the Organization of American Historians conference, March 26, 2004. Available online at:

http://www.oah.org/meetings/2004/papers/index.html

 

“The State Film Censors,” presented at the New York State Library, October 2003

 

“State Film Censorship,” guest lecture at Cazenovia College,  March 2003

 

“Bad Case/Good Case: The Outlaw and The Miracle as Legal Tests of New York’s Film Censorship,” presented at

joint meeting of the Law and Society Association and the Canadian Law and Society Association, Vancouver, BC, June 2002

 

“The End of Immorality in New York: La Ronde and the Narrowing of Censorship” presented at Researching New

York: Perspectives on Empire State History, November 2001

 

“Bad Case/Good Case: The Outlaw and The Miracle as Legal Tests of Film Censorship,” presented at Researching

New York: Perspectives on Empire State History, November 2000

 

 

Professional Development:

 

Institute for Constitutional Studies, Georgetown University, Summer Workshop – Constitutional

History Redux:  Rethinking ‘Major Cases,’ July 2007

University at Albany ITLAL teaching workshops, 2007-2008

UNC-Wilmington Center for Teaching Excellence workshops, 2004-2007

Vermont State Colleges Learning Technologies conference, October 2003

Castleton State College writing intensive course development workshop, March 2003

Vermont State Colleges professional development seminar, November 2002