Benjamin Alpers

Dr. Benjamin Alpers received his PhD in history from Princeton University in 1994.   He joined the faculty of the Honors College in 1998.  His primary teaching and research interests concern twentieth-century America intellectual and cultural history, with special interests in political culture and film history.  Among the courses he offers in the Honors College are colloquia on World War II in history and memory and film noir, and Perspectives courses on American social thought and politics and culture in the Great Depression.  Ben is currently working on a book on Leo Strauss, Staussianism, and American academic and political life.  He has received grants from the American Philosophical Society and the Gerald Ford Presidential Library in support of his research.  He is also completing a shorter project on anti-Nazism in the films of Frank Borzage.