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Teaching and Research Interests

Modern U.S. History

Biography

Henry Kamerling is a scholar of nineteenth and twentieth century American history and world history. Dr. Kamerling earned his BA from Colorado College and an MA and PhD from the University of Illinois and Champaign-Urbana in 1998. Before coming to Seattle University Dr. Kamerling taught at the University of Rochester and Queens University in Charlotte, NC. He has also been a Visiting Scholar at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, China. Dr. Kamerling came to Seattle University in 2008. He teaches courses nineteenth and twentieth century American history and world history. He also teaches Inquiry Seminars in the Humanities and Global Challenges in both the Humanities and Social Sciences in the University’s Core program. Dr. Kamerling’s research interests include the study of crime, punishment, and prisons in modern America, American racial and ethnic history as understood through the lens of crime and punishment, the history of the American South, the history of the undead (zombies) and monsters throughout the modern world, and comparisons between zombies and superheroes in contemporary popular culture. Dr. Kamerling’s work examines the way societies draw boundaries between normal and aberrant behavior and police social norms in the context of crime, criminals, monsters, and superheroes. Along with numerous articles, he has published the book: Capital and Convict: Race, Region, and Punishment in Post-Civil War America (University of Virginia Press, 2017). His current book-length research project explores the question: are zombies superheroes?