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Darren Dochuk
Assistant Professor, Department of History
Office: UNIV 125
Office Phone: (765) 494-7684
Office Fax: (765) 496-1755
Email: ddochuk@purdue.edu
Specialization: My research focuses principally on the intersection of politics, religion, and culture in post-1940 America. Overlapping with these research concerns are my primary teaching interests in twentieth-century American political, cultural, and religious history, the history of modern conservatism, and the history of American society in the post-World War II era.
My interest in American history stems from childhood experiences growing up in Edmonton, Alberta. When looking for a summer vacation destination my family typically looked south (we never saw much need in exploring tundra north of the city), and it was this urge that chased us to far-off, exotic placed like Dallas and Duluth. Determined to learn more about this strange, foreign land I took up American history, first casually then as an undergraduate history major at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia. Bitten with the history bug I moved to Queen's University in Ontario where I completed an M.A. degree by writing a thesis on religion and politics in late-nineteenth-century Toronto.
It was my desire to study similar dynamics in the twentieth-century American environment that led me to Notre Dame for my Ph.D. There I completed a dissertation that sought to explain the rise of the Republican Right in postwar Southern California by accounting for the "plain folk" religious ideas, individuals, and institutions that moved west from Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas during and after World War II. Awarded the 2006 Allan Nevins Dissertation Prize by the Society of American Historians, my dissertation manuscript, now titled "From Bible Belt to Sunbelt: Plain Folk Religion, Grassroots Politics, and the Rise of the Conservative Southwest," is currently under consideration and revision for publication. While wrapping up this project I will continue researching my next book and writing shorter pieces on conservative religion and politics in the twentieth century, as well as on other related themes in urban and western American and Canadian history.
At Purdue I have the privilege of offering courses that allow me to combine my research and teaching interests. General courses like American Political History, Post-1945 America, and the Post-Civil War American Survey are my mainstays, but I also look forward to offering undergraduate and graduate courses on Politics and Culture in the Modern West, History of the American Right, Religion and Politics in Cold War America, and The Seventies.