Benjamin Serby | Faculty Profiles

Diplomas/Degrees

PhD, Columbia University (2020)

MPhil, Columbia University (2016)

MA, Columbia University (2015)

BA, Brandeis University (2010)

Personal Statement

Benjamin Serby teaches The Modern Condition to first-year honors students at Adelphi, where he is Visiting Assistant Professor. In 2020, he completed his PhD in History at Columbia University, where he was a 2020-2021 Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for American Studies. His research concerns the intellectual and political history of the postwar United States, and he is currently writing a book that is tentatively titled An Army of Lovers: Gay Liberation and Cultural Revolution in America, 1945-1976.

Recent Courses

Social Science Seminar: American Sexualities,Past And Present

Modern Condition I

Modern Condition II

Courses Previously Taught

At Columbia University, New York, NY

US Intellectual History, 1865-Present (Lecture and Seminar: Online). Summer 2021.

Contemporary Civilization (Seminar: Online). Spring 2021.

US Intellectual History, 1865-Present (Lecture and Seminar: Online). Summer 2020.

Columbia Journeys Seminar, Columbia Undergraduate Scholars Program. Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020.

The US Presidency in Historical and Global Perspective, Program for High School Students. Summers 2018 & 2019.

Senior Thesis Research Colloquium, Center for American Studies. Fall 2015.

At the Museum of the City of New York

East Harlem in Context, Saturday Academy at the Museum of the City of New York. February-April 2018.

Specialization/Interests

US History, post-1945; intellectual and cultural history; history of social and political thought; radical politics and social movements; LGBTQ history; history of sexuality; US labor and working-class history; American popular music; history of New York City

Research Interests

LGBTQ history; history of sexuality; print culture; US History, post-1945; intellectual and cultural history; history of social and political thought; radical politics and social movements; the 1960s

Articles

“‘Not to Produce Newspapers, But Committed Radicals’: The Underground Press, The New Left, and the Gay Liberation Counterpublic in the United States, 1965-1976,” The Journal of the History of Sexuality, Vol. 32, no. 1 (January 2023): 1-26.

"The Two Souls of Marcuse's One-Dimensional Man" (with Jeremy Cohan), Catalyst v. 5, no. 2 (Summer 2021): 104-135

“Their Dialectics and Ours: Herbert Marcuse and American Marxism, 1940-1960,” Society 55, no. 4 (August 2018): 356-360.

“The Dialectical Liberalism of Richard Hofstadter," Society 55, no. 2 (April 2018): 142-145.

"Recalling Lewis Feuer," Society 50, no. 4 (August 2013): 356-359.

Other Work

“Signs of the Times.” Review of Lynne B. Sagalyn, Times Square Remade: The Dynamics of Urban Change, in New York Review of Architecture 38/39 (Winter 2023-24).

“Kill All Normies?” Review of Jeremiah Moss, Feral City: On Finding Liberation in Lockdown New York, in New York Review of Architecture 34 (April 2023).

"Richard Hofstadter at 100" (digital exhibition)

"'People Love the Rat': How Scabby, Labor's Mascot, Took New York," Gotham: A Blog for Scholars of New York City History, Oct. 21, 2021

“The High Line and Environs: A Historical Overview,” Friends of the High Line, Fall 2019

“Queer All Along: A Short History of LGBTQ Life in Lower Manhattan,” The Alliance for Downtown New York, May 2019

"New York's Last Socialist Congressperson," Jacobin, Dec. 20, 2018

“Nothing's Lost Forever: Tony Kushner's America,” The Nation, August 27, 2018: 32-34

Grants

Bhisé Global Understanding Project Faculty Research Grant, Adelphi University (2023-24)

Adelphi University Internal Faculty Development Grant (2023-24)

Michigan State University Libraries Visiting Scholar (2023)

William P. Heidrich Research Fellowship, University of Michigan Special Collections (2023)

Friends of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries Grants to Scholars (2023)

2021-2023 Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in Women’s History and Public History, New York Historical Society (Declined)

Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in American Studies, Columbia University (2020-2021)

Travel Grant, Columbia Research Initiative on the Global History of Sexualities (2020)

Harry H. Harkins, Jr., Research Grant, David M. Rubinstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Duke University, Durham, NC (2019)

Isherwood Family Foundation Visiting Fellow, The Huntington Library, Pasadena, CA (2018)

Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in Museum Education, Museum of the City of New York, New York, NY (2016-2017)

History in Action Project Award, Department of History, Columbia University (2016)

Brebner Travel Award, Department of History, Columbia University, and Matching Travel Grant, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Columbia University (2015, 2017)

Travel Grant, Center for American Studies, Columbia University (2014, 2018, 2019)

Richard S. Hofstadter Fellow in American History, Columbia University (2012-2017)

Theses Advised

“The Road to Radicalization: Tracking the Development of the Weather Underground’s Ideology”

“Bodies, Buildings, and War: Public Art Responses to the Official American 9/11 Narrative”

“War After the American Body: Transhumanism, Gender, and the Post-Human Frontier”

“The Problem of Culture in the Writings of Randolph Bourne and the Young W.E.B. Du Bois”

“Intimacy, Injury, and Identity: The Specter of AIDS in Contemporary Queer American Film”

“Francis Schaeffer and the Political Theology of American Evangelicalism”

“The Romantic Consciousness: Marxism, Liberalism, and the Education of Marshall Berman, 1961-1970”

Professional Activities

Historical Research (Freelance)

Friends of the High Line, New York, NY: October 2019-April 2020

The Jewish Museum, New York, NY: May-September 2019

The Alliance for Downtown Manhattan, New York, NY, January-May 2019

The Winthrop Group, New York, NY, February-November 2018

Other Work Experience

Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Center for American Studies, Columbia University, New York, NY, June 2020-May 2021

Academic Adviser and Senior Thesis Supervisor, Center for American Studies, Columbia University, New York, NY, September 2013-May 2020

Graduate Student Mentor, Undergraduate Scholars Program, Columbia University, New York, NY, August 2018-May 2020

Andrew W. Mellon Predoctoral Fellow in Museum Education, Museum of the City of New York, New York, NY, June 2016-August 2017