Gregory Kaster

History

Greg Kaster joined the Gustavus History Department in 1986.  He received his BA (1975) and MA (1978) from Northern Illinois University, where he first encountered social and intellectual history and the "professor as activist," and his PhD (1990) from Boston University.  His PhD dissertation examined the language (or what he called the "labor jeremiad") of organized workingmen in nineteenth-century America.  His research interests include the history of masculinity in America and memory and history.  Publications include an essay on the American labor movement, 1790-1860, in Encyclopedia of American Social Movements, ed. Immanuel Ness (M.E. Sharpe, 2004), and "Labor's True Man: Organized Workingmen and the Language of Manliness in the USA, 1827-1877," Gender and History 13 (April 2001), pp. 24-64.  The latter grew out of a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar for College and University Teachers directed by distinguished labor historian Melvyn Dubofsky.  Greg's teaching interests include the Civil War era, American radicalism, the Sixties, American biography, American manhood, American film and culture, and, influenced by Sam Wineburg's work, the "unnatural act" of historical thinking.  In the classroom there is nothing he likes more than informed and energetic discussion of the course materials, or what he calls "working out" with the sources.  A Chicagoland native and New Yorker by marriage, Greg is a city person who delights in the political-cultural energy and diversity of vibrant cities, including Minneapolis and St. Paul.  Among his favorite pastimes are dining out; shopping at different food purveyors in the Twin Cities (the tamales at Cinco de Mayo are outstanding, as are the varieties of feta cheese and olives at Bill's Imported Foods and the pastries and breads at Rustica); walking city streets and parks; traveling; going to the movies and the theater; watching good television (like Curb Your Enthusiasm, No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain, In Treatment, and Mad Men); following politics; and working on his courses amid the life-affirming sounds and smells of a great coffeehouse (like River Rock in St. Peter or Anodyne in Minneapolis).  He and his wife Kate Wittenstein, also a member of the History Department, are the happy companions of a black lab named Sam and a tuxedo cat named Cooper (in honor of the brilliant African-American scholar, feminist, and writer, Anna Julia Cooper). 

Contact Information

History
Gustavus Adolphus College
800 West College Avenue
Saint Peter, MN 56082

Phone: 507-933-7431
E-mail: gkaster@gustavus.edu

Courses Taught

• Am Radicalsm 1776-1896
• America to Civil War
• American Lives
• History Seminar

Gregory Kaster's Schedule