Van Gosse

An associate professor of history at Franklin and Marshall College, Van Gosse has enjoyed a varied career in academia and the nonprofit sector, including teaching at Wellesley College and Trinity College and working for national organizations such as Peace Action. His teaching and research have focused on several overlapping areas: American political development and the African American struggle for citizenship, American culture and society in the Cold War era and since, and U.S. social movements after World War II (the so-called New Left). He is also interested in the long-term political evolution of American democracy. His current book project about antebellum black politics seeks to recover the vibrant electoral and partisan world in which black men participated, both inside and outside of the abolitionist movement. Since 2004, he has also helped direct "f&m Votes," a joint student/staff/faculty effort to register and turn out the college's entire student body on Election Day.