Joel Wolfe
Professor of History
OFFICE HOURS
BACKGROUND
Professor Wolfe received his B.S. in Foreign Service from Georgetown, an M.A. in Latin American Studies from the University of New Mexico, and his Ph.D. in History from the University of Wisconsin – Madison. He has published three books on modern Brazil. Working Women, Working Men: São Paulo and the Rise of Brazil’s Industrial Working Class, 1900-1955 (Duke University Press, 1993), which was named a Choice Outstanding Book for 1995; Autos and Progress: The Brazilian Search for Modernity (Oxford University Press, 2010); and, Brazil (Polity, 2023) for the Polity Histories series.
At present, he is writing a book entitled, The American Game: Gridiron Football and the Making of a Modern Nation, which traces the long history of American football from the mid-nineteenth century to the present on the high school, college, and professional levels. He is also continuing work on a long-term project on trade, culture, and politics in the Western Hemisphere in the 1920s.
SPECIALIZATIONS
- History of Latin America
- History of Modern Brazil
- History of baseball and football
- Inter-American relations
AWARDS AND ACCOLADES
- Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
- Fulbright-Hays Fellow
- Choice Outstanding Academic Book
- Residential First Year Experience Student Choice Award, UMass Amherst, 2009-2010
- George R. Brown Prize for Excellence in Teaching (Rice University, 2003, 2004, 2005)
COURSES RECENTLY TAUGHT
- HIST 280 The History of Baseball
- HIST 283 American Gridiron Football
- HIST 121 Modern Latin America
- HIST 359 Modern Brazil