John Dunn

Visiting Assistant Professor, Human Rights Close to Home

John Dunn is a Visiting Assistant Professor in Education and Human Rights. He is a steering committee member of Human Rights Close to Home, a three-year pilot program to expand human rights and civics education for Connecticut teachers and students. He is an historian of modern Europe, specializing in France. His areas of interest include contemporary France, imperialism and decolonization, historical memory, migration, European multiculturalism, and history pedagogy and pedagogical reform.

While his interests are eclectic, the thread that runs through all of John’s research, teaching, and service is a belief in the role of pedagogy in advancing social justice and in developing capable (and critical) democratic citizens. His research is an outgrowth of his love for students and teaching, and of his interest in how and what students learn. He examines the ways the French state used schools and curriculum to reconstruct French national identity as the colonial empire slipped away after World War II.

John received his Ph.D. in History from Emory University and his B.A. in History and Political Science from the University of Richmond. Prior to his arrival at the University of Connecticut, he spent eight years at Michigan State University in the Department of History and in the Center for Integrative Studies in Social Science. In that role he was responsible for teaching the senior capstone courses for the Interdisciplinary Studies in Social Science and the Global and International Studies Majors. He was the 2019 recipient of the ISS Teaching Excellence Award from the MSU College of Social Science and was a participant in an number of University-wide teaching initiatives and pilot programs funded through the Provost’s office and the Teagle Foundation. He has also taught courses at Emory University, as a Mellon Foundation Graduate Teaching Fellow at Clark Atlanta University, and at Clayton State University.