FACULTY - Jacqueline R deVries
Professor
Jacqueline deVries specializes in modern European and British history, with a focus on social and cultural history. Since 1994, she has taught courses at Augsburg on the history of Britain and Ireland, Germany, the world wars, and comparative women and gender history. Her newest course (HIS 440) is "Back from the Brink: Postwar Europe, 1945-present." She welcomes the opportunity to work with students on honors and summer research projects, most recently advising Becki Iverson's interdisciplinary project on "The New Women of The Yellow Book" (with Prof. Dal Liddle in English.)
Her interest in 20th century Europe was nurtured by stories of her father's experience growing up in Nazi-occupied Holland. Eager to introduce students to Europe's past and present, she has led several popular study-abroad trips, including "The Aftermath of World War II" (w/ Prof. Bob Cowgill) to Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic, and she is writing a creative non-fiction book for young adults about the Netherlands during World War II.
As chair of the History department from 2000-2009, she led efforts to strengthen the teaching of research skills and historical thinking. With a grant from the Minnesota College Coalition, she worked collaboratively with librarians to develop students' bibliographic skills and created the course "The History Workshop." Her interest in introductory courses led her to write the Instructor's Resource Manual for the best-selling western civilization textbook, McKay, Hill, Buckler, et al., A History of Western Society, 10th edition (Bedford / St. Martin's, 2010), and since 2005, she has worked with high school teacher Brian Poehler to offer a week-long summer seminar for teachers of AP European history.
DeVries's research focuses on two overlapping areas – the history of feminism and the social history of religion. Her book Women, Gender and Religious Cultures in Britain, 1800-1940 (co-edited with Sue Morgan of Chichester University, UK) was published by Routledge in 2010 and her essays have appeared in a number of journals and collections, including Feminist Studies, History Compass, and Karen Offen, ed. Globalizing Feminisms to 1945 (Routledge, 2010.) She regularly publishes reviews in the Journal of British Studies, Victorian Studies, and elsewhere. She is completing a book on religion in the British women's movement (1880-1930) and recently launched a new project on Mary Scharlieb (1845-1930), an Anglo-Catholic author of sex education tracts and one of Britain's first female gynecological surgeons.
Raised in the (Dutch) Christian Reformed Church, deVries is now active in the Presbyterian Church (USA.) She is also co-author (with Cheri Register) of Westminster Presbyterian Church's sesquicentennial history, A Living Faith (2007.)
In her non-working hours, deVries is a runner and weight lifter, cook, gardener, traveler, and mom to two daughters.
