Ann Kordas
Professor
JWU Faculty Since 2007
Ann Kordas earned a J.D. from Boston University School of Law in 2001, where she was an editor of Boston University's Law Review, and a Ph.D. in History from Temple University in 2002, where she received the Conwell Fellowship and the Kramer Award for Excellence in Graduate Studies.
She is a social and cultural historian who focuses on issues of gender and race. Her special research interests include the history of childhood and adolescence, the history of popular culture, food history, history of occult belief, Cold War history, and gender history. She teaches classes in history, American government and ethics at Johnson & Wales University and ILS classes on Disease and Culture and The Supernatural.
She has presented papers at meetings of the Northeast Popular Culture Association, the Mid-Atlantic Popular/American Culture Association, the New England American Studies Association and the Popular Culture Association.
She has published on the uses of female gymnasts in Cold War propaganda, gender and the family bomb shelter, Roman Catholicism in 1930s vampire films, and the zombie in American popular culture. Her book, “The Politics of Childhood in Cold War America,” was published in 2011. She is at work on a new book called, “Violent Flirtations and Wedding Cake Dreams: Female Adolescent Sexual and Romantic Culture in the United States, 1850–1960.”
Education
- Ph.D., History, Temple University
- J.D., Law, Boston University
- B.A., History, Rhode Island College
- B.A., Anthropology, Rhode Island College
Courses
- HIST 2100: US History Colonial to 1876
- HIST 2200: US History Since 1877
- HIST 3020: Multicultural Historyof America
- ILS 4180: Things That Go Bump in Night
- HIST 2100: US History Colonial to 1876
- HIST 3020: Multicultural History of America
Professional Affiliations
Organization of American Historians, 1993–present
Northeast Popular Culture Association, 1995–present, Chair of Food and Foodways
Society for the History of Childhood and Youth, 2003–present
Publications
- “Hex Workers: African-American Women, Gender, and Hoodoo in the Civil and Post-Civil War US, Proceedings of the Women and Spirituality International Academic Symposium,” 2009 (Pub. Date: 2016). Author: Ann Kordas
- “American Government,” Chapters 1, 2, 5, 9, 11, OpenStax, 2016. Wrote/revised chapters for an American Government textbook. Authors: Ann Kordas
- “Hex Workers: African American Women, Gender, and Hoodoo in the Civil War and Post Civil War US, Women and Spirituality: An International Academic Symposium,” 2009. Author: Ann Kordas.
- “‘She Flees with Mongol in Auto’: White Women, Chinese Men, and the Campaign Against Chop Suey Restaurants in Turn-of-the-Century America,” Mid-Atlantic Popular/American Culture Association Annual Conference, 2009. Author: Ann Kordas.
- “Lemon Chiffon and Armageddon: Gender and the Family Bomb Shelter in Cold War America,” Northeast Popular Culture Association Annual Conference, 2010. Author: Ann Kordas.
- “Cold War, Hot Plates: Cooking and Eating in the Cold War American Home,” Mid-Atlantic Popular/American Culture Association Annual Conference, 2010. Author: Ann Kordas.