Bio

Caroline Winterer is William Robertson Coe Professor of History and American Studies, and Professor by courtesy of Classics. She specializes in American history before 1900, especially the history of ideas, political thought, and the history of science.

She teaches classes on American history until 1900, including American cultural and intellectual history, the American Enlightenment, and the history of science.

She is the author of six books, including most recently How the New World Became Old: The Deep Time Revolution in America (Princeton University Press, 2024).

She is currently accepting graduate students. For more information on the PhD program in the Department of History, visit: https://history.stanford.edu/academics/graduate-degree-programs.

Academic Appointments

Administrative Appointments

  • Chair, Department of History (2020 - Present)
  • William Robertson Coe Professor of History and American Studies, Department of History, Stanford University (2019 - Present)
  • Director, Stanford Humanities Center (2013 - 2019)
  • Anthony P. Meier Family Professor in the Humanities, Stanford Humanities Center (2013 - 2019)
  • Professor, Department of Classics, Stanford University (2011 - Present)
  • Professor, Department of History, Stanford University (2010 - Present)
  • Assistant Professor, Department of History, Stanford University (2004 - 2008)
  • Associate Professor, Department of History, Stanford University (2008 - 2010)
  • Assistant Professor, Department of History, San Jose State University (1998 - 2004)
  • Associate Professor, Department of History, San Jose State University (1998 - 2004)
  • Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of History, Northwestern University (1997 - 1998)

Honors & Awards

  • Elected Member, Society of American Historians ("for literary distinction in the writing of history") (2019)
  • Elected Member, American Antiquarian Society (2016)
  • Distinguished Lecturer, Organization of American Historians (2015-2021)
  • Marta Sutton Weeks Faculty Scholar, Stanford University (2013 - 2016)
  • American Ingenuity Award, Smithsonian Institution (2013)
  • Lester J. Cappon Prize, William and Mary Quarterly, Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture (2011)
  • Faculty Research Fellow, Michelle R. Clayman Institute, Stanford University (2009 - 2010)
  • Gordon and Dailey Pattee Faculty Fellow, Stanford University (2009 - 2010)
  • Fellow, Stanford Humanities Center (2008 - 2009)
  • William and Frances Green Faculty Fellow, Stanford (2005 - 2006)
  • Fellow, National Humanities Center (2003 - 2004)
  • Fellow, Howard Foundation, Brown University (2003 - 2004)
  • New Scholar’s Book Award for The Culture of Classicism, American Educational Research Association (2003)
  • Faculty Affiliate, Center for the Humanities, Northwestern University (1998 - 1999)
  • Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow, The National Academy of Education (1998 - 1999)
  • Andrew W. Mellon Dissertation Fellow, ACLS (1995 - 1996)
  • Fellowship, University of Michigan Alumni (1994 - 1995)
  • Rackham Predoctoral Fellow, University of Michigan (1994 - 1995)
  • Scholarship, University of Michigan Alumnae Council (1994)
  • Candidacy Fellow, Andrew W. Mellon (1993)
  • Outstanding Teaching Award, University of Michigan (1993)
  • John H. Kemble Senior Thesis Prize in History, Pomona College (1988)

Boards, Advisory Committees, Professional Organizations

  • Chair, Search Committee, 19th-Century U.S. (2016 - 2017)
  • Chair, Search Committee, Native American History (2016 - 2017)
  • Advisory Board, Society for U.S. Intellectual History (2015 - Present)
  • Advisory Board, University of Pennsylvania Press, Intellectual History of the Modern Age Series (2015 - Present)
  • Chair, Search Committee, Early American History, Stanford (2014 - 2015)
  • Digital Humanities Outside Reviewer, John Carter Brown Library, (Brown University) (2014 - 2014)
  • Member, Denning Fund in Digital Humanities Selection Committee, Stanford (2013 - Present)
  • Member, Advisory Committee, Interdisciplinary Honors Program in the Arts, Stanford (2013 - 2014)
  • Member, Humanities Curriculum Committee, H&S, Stanford (2013 - 2014)
  • Member, Library Digital Humanities Selection Committee (2013 - 2014)
  • Associate Editor, Oxford Encyclopedia of American Intellectual and Cultural History (2013 - 2013)
  • Editorial Board Member, Reviews in American History (2009 - Present)
  • Advisory Board Member, Stanford Humanities Center (2009 - 2013)
  • Editorial Board Member, Modern Intellectual History (2008 - Present)
  • Editorial Board Member, Palgrave series in Intellectual and Cultural History (2008 - 2013)

Program Affiliations

  • American Studies
  • Program in History & Philosophy of Science

Professional Education

  • Ph.D., University of Michigan, History (1996)
  • A.M., University of Michigan, History (1991)
  • B.A., Pomona College, History (1988)

Contact

  • Academic
    cwinterer@stanford.edu
    University - Faculty Department: History Department Position: Professor of History
    • 450 JANE STANFORD WAY, BLDG. 200
    • Stanford University
    • STANFORD,  California  94305 

Additional Info

  • Mail Code: 2024
  • Profile:
    American intellectual and cultural history, pre-1900
  • SUNet ID(s):
    caroline.winterer
    cwinterer
    medea

Links

2024-25 Courses

Stanford Advisees

All Publications

  • How the New World Became Old: The Deep Time Revolution in America winterer, C. Princeton University Press. 2024
  • “Enlightened Despotism and the American Revolution: The Political Thought of Frederick the Great of Prussia.” Political Thought and the Origins of the American Presidency, ed. Ben Lowe Winterer, C. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2021. 2021: 98–124
  • “History: Narratives of Progress.” A Cultural History of Ideas in the Age of Enlightenment, ed. Jack Censer. Winterer, C. London: Bloomsbury Academic Press. 2021
  • Time in Maps: From the Age of Discovery to Our Digital Era edited by Winterer, C., Wigen, K. University of Chicago Press. 2020
  • DEMOCRATIC VISTAS MODERN INTELLECTUAL HISTORY Winterer, C. 2019; 16 (2): 599–605

    View details for DOI 10.1017/S1479244317000439

    View details for Web of Science ID 000474914900010

  • Washington Post, review of Steven Pinker, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress (2018). Feb. 23, 2018: http://wapo.st/2EOhmgG?tid=ss_mail Winterer, C. Washington Post. 2018
  • "Historical Research in a Digital Age: Refllections on the Mapping the Republic of Letters Project" American HIstorical Review Winterer, C., et al 2017; 2 (2017): 400-424
  • The Importance of Being Ideological Eighteenth-Century Studies Winterer, C. 2017; 50 (3): 308-14

    View details for DOI 10.1353/ecs.2017.0016

  • American Enlightenments: Pursuing Happiness in the Age of Reason The Lewis Walpole Series in Eighteenth-Century Culture and History Winterer, C. Yale University Press. 2016
  • "What Was the American Enlightenment?" The Worlds of American Intellectual History Winterer, C. Oxford University Press. 2016: 19–36
  • “The Aquarial View: Taking Things Seriously in the History of Ideas.” Society for U.S. Intellectual HIstory Classics Series Winterer, C. 2016: http://s-usih.org/2016/08/the-aquarial-view-taking-things-seriously-in-the-history-of-ideas.html
  • Classicism Encyclopedia of the American Enlightenment Winterer, C. edited by Spencer, M. Thoemmes. 2014
  • Classicism Oxford Encyclopedia of American Intellectual and Cultural History Winterer, C. Oxford University Press. 2013
  • The U.S. Founders and Cyrus the Great of Persia (Book Review of Cyropaedia) Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies Winterer, C. 2013
  • WHERE IS AMERICA IN THE REPUBLIC OF LETTERS? MODERN INTELLECTUAL HISTORY Winterer, C. 2012; 9 (3): 597-623

    View details for DOI 10.1017/S1479244312000212

    View details for Web of Science ID 000310635500004

  • Thomas Jefferson and the Ancient World A Companion to Thomas Jefferson, Blackwell Companions to American History Series Winterer, C. edited by Cogliano, F. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. 2011: 380–396
  • The American Enlightenment: Treasures from the Stanford University Libraries Winterer, C. Stanford University Library. 2011
  • Classical Taste at Monticello: The Case of Thomas Jefferson's Daughter and Granddaughters Thomas Jefferson, the Classical World and Early America Winterer, C. edited by Onuf, P., Cole, N. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press. 2011: 78–98
  • The American Enlightenment: Treasures from the Stanford University Libraries Winterer, C. Stanford: Stanford University Libraries. 2011
  • Phillis Wheatley The Virgil Encyclopedia Winterer, C. edited by Thomas, R., Ziolkowski, J. M. Wiley-Blackwell. 2011
  • Model Empire, Lost City: Ancient Carthage and the Science of Politics in Revolutionary America WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY Winterer, C. 2010; 67 (1): 3-30

    View details for Web of Science ID 000275027400001

  • Fraternities and Sororities The Classical Tradition Winterer, C. edited by Grafton, A., Most, G., Settis, S. Harvard University Press. 2010
  • Why Did American Women Read the Aeneid? A Companion to Vergil’s Aeneid and Its Tradition, Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World series Winterer, C. edited by Putnam, M., Farrel, J. Wiley-Blackwell. 2010: 366–375
  • The Universal Freckle Common-Place Winterer, C. 2009; 9 (3)
  • Victorian Antigone: Classicism and Women’s Education in America, 1840-1900 American Women and Classical Myths Winterer, C. edited by Staley, G. Baylor University Press. 2009: 159–179
  • The Mirror of Antiquity; American Women and the Classical Tradition, 1750-1900 (Paperback) Winterer, C. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 2009
  • Women and Civil Society: Introduction JOURNAL OF THE EARLY REPUBLIC Winterer, C. 2008; 28 (1): 23-28

    View details for Web of Science ID 000208343300002

  • The Big Picture: The Ancient Mediterranean in Early America Common-Place Winterer, C. 2008; 8 (4)
  • The Female World of Classical Reading in Eighteenth-Century America Reading Women: Literacy, Authorship, and Culture in the Atlantic World, 1500-1800 Winterer, C. edited by Hackel, H., Kelly, C. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 2007: 105–123
  • The Mirror of Antiquity: American Women and the Classical Tradition, 1750 - 1900 Winterer, C. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 2007
  • Is There an Intellectual History of Early American Women? Modern Intellectual History Winterer, C. 2007; 4 (1): 173 - 190
  • Classical Oratory and Fears of Demagoguery in Antebellum America Classical Antiquity and the Politics of America Winterer, C. edited by Meckler, M. Baylor University Press. 2006: 41–53
  • From royal to republican: The classical image in early America JOURNAL OF AMERICAN HISTORY Winterer, C. 2005; 91 (4): 1264-1290

    View details for Web of Science ID 000240381500002

  • Venus on the Sofa: Women, Neoclassicism, and the Early American Republic Modern Intellectual History Winterer, C. 2005: 29 - 60
  • Republican Art Wilson Quarterly Winterer, C. 2005: 104 - 105
  • The Culture of Classicism: Ancient Greece and Rome in American Intellectual Life, 1780-1910 (Paperback) Winterer, C. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. 2004
  • John Clarke (1687-1734) Dictionary of British Classicists, 1500-1960 Winterer, C. edited by Todd, R. Bristol: Thoemmes Press. 2004
  • The culture of classicism: Ancient Greece and Rome in American intellectual life, 1780-1910 (Book Review) NEW REPUBLIC Book Review Authored by: Bowersock, G. W. 2002; 227 (19): 27-31

    View details for Web of Science ID 000178882300014

  • The Problem of the Past in the Modern University: Catholics and Classicists, 1860-1900 History of Education Quarterly Winterer, C., Mahoney, K. 2002; 42: 518-545
  • The Culture of Classicism: Ancient Greece and Rome in American Intellectual Life, 1780-1910 Winterer, C. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. 2002
  • The American School of Classical Studies at Athens: Scholarship and High Culture in the Gilded Age Winterer, C. edited by Allen, S. 2002: 93–104
  • Victorian Antigone: Classicism and women's education in America, 1840-1900 AMERICAN QUARTERLY Winterer, C. 2001; 53 (1): 70-93

    View details for Web of Science ID 000167939600003

  • The Humanist Revolution in America, 1820-1860: Classical Antiquity in the Colleges History of Higher Education Annual Winterer, C. 1998; 18: 111 - 129
  • A HAPPY MEDIUM - THE SOCIOLOGY OF COOLEY,CHARLES,HORTON JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES Winterer, C. 1994; 30 (1): 19-27

    View details for Web of Science ID A1994MY57900002

  • AVOIDING A HOTHOUSE SYSTEM OF EDUCATION - 19TH-CENTURY EARLY-CHILDHOOD EDUCATION FROM THE INFANT SCHOOLS TO THE KINDERGARTENS HISTORY OF EDUCATION QUARTERLY Winterer, C. 1992; 32 (3): 289-314

    View details for Web of Science ID A1992JQ13600001