Illinois State University Professor of History Alan Lessoff has been named the spring 2016 Obama Fellow at the Transnational Institute for American Studies (ITAS) at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany.
An internationally recognized scholar of U.S. and comparative urban history, Lessoff will continue his research as an Obama Fellow at ITAS (soon to be renamed the Obama Institute), give a series of presentations, and take part in seminars at the university.
Lessoff is the author of Where Texas Meets the Sea: Corpus Christi and Its History as well as The Nation and Its City: Politics, “Corruption,” and Progress in Washington, D.C., 1861-1902. Along with writing over 50 journal articles, book chapters, essays, encyclopedia articles, and book reviews, he co-edited Fractured Modernity: America Confronts Modern Times, 1890s to 1940s, and Adolf Cluss, Architect: From Germany to America. Lessoff also co-wrote the Historical Dictionary of the Progressive Era and Legacy: A History of the Art Museum of South Texas.
The recipient of two Fulbright lecture appointments, Lessoff served as a visiting professor at the University of Bielefeld and the University of Kassel in Germany, as well as Bilkent University in Turkey. He won the Roger D. Bridges Service Award from the Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era in 2014, after acting for over a decade as editor of the esteemed Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. A former member of the editorial board of the Journal of Urban History, he continues to work with the Journal of Ankara Studies.
Throughout his career, Lessoff has presented his research across the nation and Europe. He consulted on the award-winning 2005 exhibit, “Adolf Cluss: From Germany to America,” a joint, multimedia project of the Washington Goethe-Institut, the German Historical Institute, and the Smithsonian Office of Architectural History. That same year, he coordinated a joint conference of the British American Nineteenth Century Historians and the Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era in Cambridge, England.
Lessoff earned a doctorate from Johns Hopkins University, joined the faculty of Illinois State in 2000, and earned the rank of professor in 2004.
For additional information on Lessoff’s appointment, contact MediaRelations@IllinoisState.edu.
