Professor Jeanne Petit came to Hope College from Knox College, where she earned her BA (1992) and the University of Notre Dame, where she earned her MA (1993) and Ph.D. (2000). Her research interests include gender and immigration, and she is particularly interested in the ways American men and women have used ideologies of gender and race to shape public policy and to define citizenship. Her work also includes consideration of religion and class, as she investigates the ways in which Catholic laywomen sought positions of power and influence in the United States after the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment (women’s suffrage). She is currently revising her book manuscript, “The Men and Women We Want: Gender, Citizenship and Immigration Restriction Debates, 1896-1929,” for publication.
Professor Petit regularly teaches Cultural Heritage II and the modern
half of the United States survey (1877-present). Her upper-level courses
focus on US social and cultural history. Her offerings include “American
Intellectual History: Race, Class and Gender,” “U.S. Women
and Social Change,” and
“Immigration and Ethnicity in United States History,” as well
as topical courses focusing on particular periods of American history,
such as “World War I America,” “The Roaring Twenties”
and the perennially popular class, “Recent America.” She has
also taught a first year seminar about “War Stories,” and
History 140, the department’s course in history methods, about “Debating
American Identity.” She is one of the directors of the History Colloquium
Series, which brings speakers to Hope College, and the advisor to Hope’s
chapter of Phi Alpha Theta, the national history honor society. She welcomes
suggestions from students about what kinds of talks and activities would
interest them.
In her free time, Professor Petit enjoys traveling, both in the United
States and in Europe, cycling, reading mystery novels and political “blogs”
on the Internet, and playing poker.