Erika M. Huckestein, PhD
- Assistant Teaching Professor in History
Affiliated Programs
Education
- PhD, European History (2019)
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (NC) - MA, European History (2014)
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (NC) - BA, History (2010)
Carleton College (MN)
About Me
I received my PhD in European history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2019. As a teacher, I aim to convey the importance of thinking historically to all of my students. Discussions and assignments in my courses require students to use historical analysis to carefully evaluate information and craft original arguments. I also strive to expose my students to new ideas and content in the classroom, and challenge students to think differently about topics or ideas they have encountered before. The practice of bringing a critical lens to the structures and forces that have shaped history provides students with the tools they need to "do" history inside and outside of the classroom, regardless of their major.
Research Interests
My research interests include the history of social and political movements, women's activism, anti-fascism, and pacifism. My current book project analyzes the political work of over twenty different British women’s organizations that opposed the rise of fascist regimes in Europe beginning in the early 1930s. While some former militant suffragists joined fascist organizations in Britain, British women’s organizations overwhelmingly understood fascism as the single largest menace to women’s rights. In the years before and during the Second World War, British women’s organizations used the threat posed by fascism to legitimize their engagement in political discourses and to emphasize the importance of protecting the democratic rights that women had fought for decades to obtain.
Publications
- Huckestein, Erika M. and Reeves, Mark. “A Fascist Triangle or a Rotary Wheel: The Sino-Japanese War and the Gendered Internationalisms of Sylvia Pankhurst and Carlos Romulo.” In Gendering the Trans-Pacific World: Diaspora, Empire, and Race, ed. Catherine Ceniza Choy and Judy Tzu-Chun Wu (Boston: Brill, 2017).
Professional Affiliations & Memberships
- American Historical Association (AHA)
- North American Conference on British Studies (NACBS)
Awards
- Mellon-CES Dissertation Completion Fellowship, Council for European Studies (2018-2019)
- Werner Friederich Dissertation Fellowship, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2015-2016)