Caitlin Reed Wiesner
- Assistant Professor, History
- School of Liberal Arts
- Maher Hall Room 205
- cwiesner@mercy.edu
- (914) 888-5134
- View My Scholar Website
Dr. Wiesner is an Assistant Professor of History who specializes in the history of women, gender, and sexuality in the 20th century United States.
When she is not teaching or researching, Dr. Wiesner enjoys cooking and trying new foods, hiking, and visiting museums near her home in Central New Jersey.
Ph.D., Rutgers University (2021)
B.A., The College of New Jersey (2015)
Dr. Wiesner's research focuses on gender violence, feminist activism, African American women, and state crime control policy in the late 20th century United States. She is currently working on a book project based upon her recently defended dissertation, “Controlling Rape: Black Women, the Feminist Movement Against Sexual Violence, and the State, 1974-1994." This project examines how Black anti-rape organizers critically engaged both the feminist movement against sexual violence and the federal War on Crime between 1974 and 1994.
Dr. Wiesner teaches a variety of courses within the History Program, including surveys of United States and African American History; upper-division courses on history of race, gender, and sexuality in the United States; and seminars on historical research methods.
Journal Articles
“‘The first thing we cry about is violence’: The National Black Women’s Health Project and the Fight Against Rape and Battering,” Journal of Women’s History, forthcoming Spring 2022.
Book Chapters
“In the Shadow of Old Queens: African American Life and Labors in New Brunswick from the End of Slavery to the Industrial Era” in Scarlet and Black: Slavery and Dispossession in Rutgers History, Volume II, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2020.
““An’ I A Poor Slave Yet”: The Precarity of Black Life in New Brunswick, 1766-1835” in Scarlet and Black: Slavery and Dispossession in Rutgers History, Volume I,New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2016.
Book Reviews
Review of The Feminist War on Crime: The Unexpected Role of Women’s Liberation in Mass Incarceration by Aya Gruber, Feminist Formations 33, no. 1 (Spring 2021): 279-282.
Dr. Wiesner's research has been supported by the Graduate School of New Brunswick, the Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis, Rutgers Oral History Archives, Smith College Libraries, the New-York Historical Society, the P.E.O. International, the Warren and Beatrice Susman Endowment, and the Coordinating Council for Women's History.