John G. McCurdy

A photo of John McCurdy

Professor and Graduate Coordinator

History and Philosophy

701H Pray Harrold

734.487.0906

[email protected]

Education

  • PhD, Washington University
  • MA, Washington University
  • MA, University of Chicago
  • BA, Knox College

Interests and Expertise

Professor McCurdy specializes in colonial and Revolutionary America, gender, and LGBTQ+ history.

His research explores the cultural history of the eighteenth-century Anglo Atlantic. He seeks to understand how personal identity and citizenship were shaped by the Enlightenment and global struggles for independence in North America and around the world.   

In Citizen Bachelors, Professor McCurdy considers the laws, lives, and literature of unmarried men in colonial America, and how this informed a more inclusive notion of American citizenship. In Quarters, he focuses on housing British soldiers on the eve of the Revolution, and how debates over military power shaped notions of place in the nation that followed. In his most recent book, Vicious and Immoral, he examines the case of a man tried for same-sex intimacy to understand how people in Revolutionary America understood LGBTQ+ people.

Courses

  • HIST 115: What is an American?
  • HIST 123: The United States to 1877
  • HIST 380: American Colonies
  • HIST 415/519: Sexual Communities in American History
  • HIST 432/532: Native American History
  • HIST 462/562: The Atlantic World
  • HIST 480/580: The American Revolution
  • HIST 501: Reading US History
  • HIST 505: Historical Methods
  • HIST 601: Researching US History

Publications and Presentations

Books
Articles and Chapters
Public History Talks

Grants, Honors and Awards

Distinguished Faculty Research II Award 2025

 

Professional

Associations/Memberships
  • Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture
  • McNeil Center for Early American Studies
  • Organization of American Historians