Biography
Andrew W. Bell’s teaching and research interests include modern American history, American foreign relations, empire and imperialism, environmental history, and the history of archaeology. His first book, tentatively titled Excavating Empire: Archaeologists and American Foreign Relations, is under contract with Oxford University Press. He is also researching a new project on the intersections of forestry, war, transatlantic exchange, and American global power during and after the First World War.
This semester, Bell is offering two courses: U.S. Foreign Policy, a survey of American foreign relations from the late-eighteenth century to the present; and From the Great War to the Great Depression, a reading and research seminar structured around the Great War, the Great Migration, the Great Influenza, the Great Gatsby, and the Great Crash. In the spring, Bell will be offering three additional courses: American History, 1877 to the Present, a survey of U.S. history since Reconstruction; Beyond Indiana Jones, a hybrid survey-seminar covering the history, politics, and culture of archaeology; and American Empire, a reading-intensive seminar on the imperial history of the United States.
Prior to joining Oberlin’s history department, Bell taught at Amherst College, Emerson College, and Boston University. He also worked at the Centre d'Histoire de Sciences Po as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions postdoctoral fellow.
