Research Description

I am a specialist in the history of the United States and Canada, particularly social, cultural and political history of the 20th century with an emphasis on post-1945. My research has explored the migration of persons and political ideas across national borders, as well as the constellation of identity, representation, rights and community for so-called “homosexual” or same-sex sexual subjects in both the United States and Canada. My intellectual interests focus on the connections between political and public cultures and their relationship to subjective experiences and social contexts of historical actors. Increasingly I have been exploring the ways that sexual orientation and gender identity have been coupled with right claims and how this articulation has, in effect, manifested and even impoverished the historical particularity of communities and so-called sub-cultures.

Teaching Description

As a professor of history I have endeavored to teach students the craft of history – that is to be practitioners of historical thinking and writing – rather than passive readers of historical works. To do this I introduced students to a broad range of evidentiary sources such as legal documents, letters, newspapers, diaries, census records, photographs, music and film, both in my lectures and in my assignments.

It is this process of historical research and writing that teaches students that history is not simply the exposition of past events and dates but rather an interpretive intellectual practice, shaped by context, ideology, perspective and temporality. In addition it also requires students to attend to the standards and ethical practice of historical argument based on standards of evidence and argumentation. At the University of Manitoba I teach a range of courses including: the History of Human Rights and Social Justice, the History of the United States Since 1607, the Cultural Politics of the 1960s, as well as a course on Graphic Histories and Historiography.

Public/Media (Non-Technical) Description

Dr. David S. Churchill is a Professor of United States. He was educated at Trent University, the University of Toronto/OISE and the University of Chicago where he received his PhD. He has been the recipient of a Social Science Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Insight Grant (2012-2017) and a Standard Research Grant (2004-2008) as well as a Rockefeller Foundation Humanities Fellow in the Program for the Study of Sexuality, Gender, Health and Human Rights, Columbia University, 2004-2005. He is the past Director of the University of Manitoba Institute for the Humanities, 2008 – 2012. He has been recognized with a University of Manitoba Outreach Award, Outstanding Teaching Award, a University of Manitoba Merit Award and in 2015 the Outstanding Professor Award in the Faculty of Arts.