Jonathan Hagel

While earning his Ph.D. at Brown University, Prof. Jonathan C. Hagel read widely in the culture, thought and politics of the United States throughout the long 20th century. His main areas of interest are American political culture; the role of racism and anti-racism in shaping American life; the rise of the social and behavioral sciences; the causes and consequences of the twinned crises of the century — the Great Depression and the 1970s. And, of course, movies and sports.  

His research concerns America’s moral revolution about racism — a still-incomplete moral revolution, as has become so painfully apparent in the last few years. An intellectual and cultural historian by training, Dr. Hagel has focused his attention on how American intellectuals came to define “racism” as a social problem in the 20th century, and how their definitions changed over time. He has been guided by four key questions: How did American intellectuals learn to think and argue “against race” in a society founded on racial division and exploitation? How did they set about creating new knowledge about “racism,” or more specifically, tools for how to determine who or what is “racist”? How did they project their ideas into the public sphere and translate their thinking into a new common sense about difference, conflict and hate? Finally, what were the limits of their thinking and argument?

He is currently at work on a book project on this topic, The Souls of White Folk: A Nation’s Search for the Racist Within, whose title borrows from one of W.E.B. DuBois’s more underappreciated essays.