Cate Denial is the Bright Distinguished Professor of American History and Director of the Bright Institute at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. A Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians, Cate is the winner of the American Historical Association’s 2018 Eugene Asher Distinguished Teaching award, and a former member of the Digital Public Library of America‘s Educational Advisory Board.  Cate currently sits on the board of Commonplace: A Journal of Early American Life.

Cate’s new book A Pedagogy of Kindness, will be published by the University of Oklahoma Press in July 2024 (pre-orders are open at the OUP website).  Her historical research has examined the early nineteenth-century experience of pregnancy, childbirth and child-rearing in Upper Midwestern Ojibwe and missionary cultures, research that grew from Cate’s previous book, Making Marriage: Husbands, Wives, and the American State in Dakota and Ojibwe Country (2013).

As Director of the Bright Institute at Knox College, Cate oversees a program which supports thirteen faculty from liberal arts schools across the United States in their teaching and research for three years, while providing them with $10,500 in research funds and convening an annual summer seminar.

Cate is the PI on a $150,000 grant awarded to Knox College by the Mellon Foundation in July 2022, bringing together thirty-six participants from across higher education in the United States to explore “Pedagogies, Communities, and Practices of Care in the Academy After COVID-19.”

Cate is also a pedagogical consultant who works with individuals, departments, and institutions in the U.S., the U.K., Canada, and Australia. You can find out more about this work on her Consulting page.

Header image: Peter Bailley / Knox College