Home / Faculty / Research Specialties

Faculty by Research Specialization

The Department of History at UC Santa Cruz is known for its innovative research and exemplary scholarship. Our faculty work at the cutting edge of their respective fields, covering a wide variety of geographic, temporal, and thematic fields of study. The areas of specialization listed here are by no means an exhaustive list of our scholastic interests. Rather, they highlight the diverse and often overlapping ideas and approaches we explore within our teaching and research.

Bruce A Thompson
  • Title
    • Jewish Studies Academic Advising Coordinator
    • Continuing Lecturer
  • Division Humanities Division
  • Department
    • History Department
    • Literature Department
  • Affiliations Jewish Studies
  • Phone
    831-459-3467 (office)
  • Email
  • Office Location
    • Stevenson College Academic Building, 276 Stevenson College
  • Office Hours Spring 2024: Monday and Wednesday @ 9:45-11:30
  • Mail Stop Stevenson Academic Services
  • Mailing Address
    • 1156 High Street
    • Santa Cruz CA 95064
  • Faculty Areas of Expertise California History, Climate Change, Environmental History, European Studies, Film, History, Jewish Studies and Judaism, Religion and Secularism, War
  • Courses HIS 70B, Modern European History, 1815-present; HIS 74, Introduction to Modern Jewish History; HIS 75, Film and the Holocaust; HIS 155, History of Modern Israel; HIS 174, Spies: History and Culture of Espionage; HIS 178B, European Intellectual History, 1770-1870; HIS 178C, European Intellectual History, 1870-1970; HIS 178E, Modern Jewish Intellectual History; HIS 196E, Modern Irish History; HIS 196F, European Environmental History

Summary of Expertise

European history, Jewish history and literature.

Research Interests

European intellectual and cultural history, French history, Jewish intellectual and cultural history, British and Irish history, history of cinema, history of espionage, environmental history.

Biography, Education and Training

Ph.D., Stanford University

Selected Publications

  • Co-Editor, Varieties of Antisemitism: History, Ideology, Discourse, (University of Delaware Press, 2010)
  • The Literal Imagination: Selected Essays by Ian Watt Palo Alto: SPOSS, 2003
  • Entries in Reader's Guide to British History: "Burke, Edmund," "Fiction: Romantic Era," "Drama: 1914-present"; "Painting:Holbein to Hogarth"; "Painting: Gainsborough to Sickert" London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2003
  • "Restoring the Rhine: Salmon 2000," in History in Dispute: Global Water Issues Since 1945, Columbia, S.C.: Bruccoli Clark Layman, Inc./Manly, 2001
  • Critical History: The Career of Ian Watt, Stanford Humanities Review (co-editor) Palo Alto: SPOSS, 2000
  • Entries in Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing: "Jerome Blum" (pp. 96-97), "Robert Brenner" (pp. 124-125), "Felix Gilbert" (pp. 465-467), "Leszek Kolakowski" (pp. 652-653), "Garrett Mattingly" (pp. 785-786), "Barrington Moore" (pp. 835-836), "Simon Schama" (pp. 1057-1058), London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1999
  • "Ernest Gellner and the Conditions of Liberty," Stanford Humanities Review, 5:2, pp. 287-290, 1997
  • Co-Editor, Tact and Intelligence: Essays on Diplomatic History and International Relations by Gordon A. Craig
  • Co-Editor, Knowledge and Power: Essays on Politics, Culture, and War by Gordon A. Craig

Teaching Interests

European intellectual and cultural history, French history, Jewish intellectual and cultural history, British and Irish history, history of cinema, history of espionage, environmental history.