Education
B.A., Gender and Women’s Studies, Minor in Chemistry, Bowdoin College
M.A., History, University of Chicago
Ph.D., History, University of Chicago
Areas of Interest:
Twentieth-century East Central Europe
State Socialism and Post-Socialism
Cold War history
Labor, Gender, and Sexuality
Anthropocene, energy, and environmental history
Mining
About Dr. Mead
Dr. Julia Mead is an environmental historian specializing in modern Eastern Europe, with research interests in energy, gender, and labor. Her dissertation, “Lights Out: Mining Masculinity and Energy Crisis in Czechoslovakia, 1948–1992,” examines the rise and decline of Czechoslovakia’s coal economy from 1948 to 2004 and its connection to changing ideas of masculinity. Her research explores how coal miners gained a privileged social status under socialism and how that status shifted during the transition to capitalism. Her broader interests include the history of household appliances, socialist women’s organizations, and energy infrastructure in the former Eastern Bloc.