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Faculty by Undergraduate Concentration

All history majors select a geographic region of concentration as their primary area of study: Americas and Africa, Asia and the Pacific, and Europe and the Mediterranean World. Majors are encouraged to get to know the faculty in their region of concentration as early as possible.

History majors are also encouraged to carve out their own unique thematic research pathway — religion, social movements, science and environment, and gender, to name a few — and to get to know the history faculty who specialize in those research areas.

***Click on a faculty member's name to view their detailed profile information.***

Matthew Lasar
  • Title
    • Lecturer
  • Division Humanities Division
  • Department
    • History Department
  • Phone
    831-459-5593
  • Email
  • Office Location
    • Stevenson College Academic Building, 280 Stevenson
    • 280 Stevenson College
  • Office Hours Spring 2023: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 10 am to noon on Zoom. Students welcome! 😎
  • Mail Stop Stevenson Academic Services
  • Mailing Address
    • 1156 High Street
    • Santa Cruz CA 95064
  • Faculty Areas of Expertise History, Politics, World History, United States Politics and Government
  • Courses HIS 10B, The United States of America from the Gilded Age through the Cold War; HIS 110E, What Is a Nation? The U.S. from 1877 to 1914; HIS 110F, The United States from World War I through World War II; HIS 110G, The U.S. after the Second World War; History 117: Global Cold War; History 118a: Conspiracy Planet; History 15: The United States of America

Summary of Expertise

The United States of America; the Cold War; conspiracies and conspiracy theories.

Research Interests

United States history; world history; history of the Cold War; radio and telecommunications history.

Biography, Education and Training

Ph.D, Claremont Graduate School

Honors, Awards and Grants

UCSC Excellence in Teaching Award, 2016

Selected Publications

  • Radio 2.0: Uploading the First Broadcast Medium, ABC-CLIO Praeger, 2016
  • Uneasy Listening: Pacifica Radio's Civil War, London: Black Apollo Press, 2005.
  • Pacifica Radio: The Rise of an Alternative Network Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1999; Robert Dawidoff, series editor; updated edition in paperback, 2000
  • "The Triumph of the Visual: Stages and Cycles in the Pornography Controversy from the McCarthy Era to the Present," The Journal of Policy History, Volume 7, No. 2, 1995.
  • "Pacifica Radio's Crisis of Containment," in McCauley, Artz, Halleck, and Peterson, eds., Public Broadcasting and the Public Interest, New York: M.E. Sharpe, December, 2002.
  • "Right out in public": Pacifica Radio, the Cold War, and the Political Origins of Alternative Media", Pacific Historical Review, Volume 67, Number 4, November 1998.
  • "Hybrid Highbrow: KPFA's Reconstruction of Elite Culture, 1942-1960," The Journal of Radio Studies, Volume 5, Number 1, Winter, 1998.

Teaching Interests

The United States of America; the Cold War; conspiracies and conspiracy theories.