Glenn Altschuler is an American writer, university-level educator, administrator,[1][2] and professor at Cornell University, where he is the Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Emeritus Professor of American Studies and a Weiss Presidential Fellow.
Altschuler has taught large lecture courses in American popular culture and has been a strong advocate for the value of humanities and for high-quality undergraduate teaching and advising. He is a subject-matter expert on Popular Culture, Politics, and Higher Education in the United States.[3][4][5]
Early life and education
Altschuler received his BA in history (Magna Cum Laude with Honors) from Brooklyn College in 1971, his MA from Cornell University in 1973, and his PhD in American history from Cornell in 1976.[6]
Career
Altschuler began his teaching career as a history professor at Ithaca College in 1975.
In 1981, he joined Cornell University as an administrator and teacher and became noted for his work on the history of American popular culture.[6] He believes that popular culture is "contested terrain", which are economic classes and demographic groups who struggle to make their marks on society.[2] His year-long course in American Popular Culture was among the most popular in the university.[6][7]
Altschuler also served as Cornell's vice president for University Relations[9] for four years, with responsibilities for articulating and overseeing strategies related to communications, government relations, and land grant affairs.[10] Additional positions included Chair of the Academic Advising Center (1983-1991), Associate Dean for Advising and Alumni Affairs (1986-1991), and Chair of Cornell's Sesquicentennial Commission (2012-2015).
For four years, Altschuler wrote a column on higher education for the Education Life section of The New York Times. From 2002 to 2005, he was a regular panelist on national and international affairs for the WCNY television program The Ivory Tower Half-Hour[1] A popular speaker, Altschuler has given lectures throughout the United States, and in China, England, Ireland, Israel, Italy, and Russia; a collection of his papers may be found in the Cornell Library's Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections.[11]
In his book-length poem, Glare (1997), A. R. Ammons, winner of two National Book Awards, wrote: “Glenn (inventively and wittily, as is his kaffeeklatsch wont) (also quite a singer and maker of songs) said why not let professors improve their pay by selling time to local commercial interests – apart from the midclass break that lets the kids visit the facilities, one could have one or more mini-breaks, such as… and now, have you tried the Downtown Bagelry…Glenn’s fun: also capable of pertinent and deep thought: we like him, as do others.”[12]
The Donna and Robert Paul Award for Excellence in Faculty Advising[6]
The Kendall S. Carpenter Memorial Award for Outstanding Advising[6]
The Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellowship (2006)[6]
The Altschuler Faculty Study in Olin Library as well as the Altschuler Terrace (2008)[13]
The New York Academy of History’s Herbert H. Lehman Prize for Distinguished Scholarship in New York History[14]
Books and sample videos
The Rise and Fall of Protestant Brooklyn: An American Story (co-authored with Stuart M. Blumin, Cornell University Press 2022), was awarded the New York Academy of History's Herbert H. Lehman Prize for the best book on New York published in 2022. See also the authors’ article “When Sunday Baseball Came to Brooklyn” (New York History, Cornell University Press 2023), the basis for a presentation by Altschuler and Blumin at the Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture in June 2023.[15] Reviewer Jon Butler of The Gotham Center for New York City History described the book as "smoothly written, smartly analyzed, and deeply researched." Butler continued, "The Rise and Fall of Protestant Brooklyn becomes An American Story, as its subtitle promises – a wonderfully satisfying book whose final sentences convey just how powerfully our past can illuminate our troubled present if we let it.”[16]
Ten Great American Trials: Lessons in Advocacy (co-authored with Faust F. Rossi, American Bar Association 2016)
The 100 Most Notable Cornellians (co-authored with Isaac Kramnick and R. Laurence Moore, Cornell University Press 2003)
All Shook Up: How Rock 'n Roll Changed America (Oxford University Press 2003) In The Atlantic, Eric Alterman wrote, “… All Shook Up, by Glenn C. Altschuler, is one of the first to do rock-and-roll the significant service of locating it within the cultural and political maelstrom it helped to create.”[17]
Rude Republic: Americans and Their Politics in the 19th Century (co-authored with Stuart M. Blumin, Princeton University Press 2000) In The American Historical Review, Tyler Anbinder wrote, “This book is one of the most significant (and certainly most original) studies of American political history to appear in the last twenty years. . . . [The authors] have written an original, thought-provoking, and persuasive book. . . . [A] path-breaking study.”[18] In The Journal of American History, Philip J. Ethington wrote, “This is a genuine paradigm-shifting book about the nature of political participation in the nineteenth-century United States. . . . The aftermath of this book should be a deep rethinking of popular political participation in the United States.”[19]
Better Than Second Best: Love and Work in the Life of Helen Magill (University of Illinois Press 1990)
Revivalism, Social Conscience and Community in the Burned-Over District (co-authored with Jan M. Saltzgaber, Cornell University Press 1983)
Race, Ethnicity, and Class in American Social Thought, 1865–1919 (American History Series, John Hope Franklin and A. S. Eisenstadt, eds., Harlan Davidson, Inc. 1982)
^ abcdefghi"Glenn C. Altschuler". American Studies Program, Cornell University. Archived from the original on 23 October 2023. Retrieved 17 October 2023.
^"Popular Culture Course discusses Marilyn, Playboy". The Cornell Daily Sun. 30 April 2003.
^Wilensky, Joe (Spring 2014). "Q&A with Cornell's Deans". Ezra Magazine. Archived from the original on 17 October 2023. Retrieved 15 October 2023.
^Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections at Cornell University Library (15 October 2023). "Glenn Altschuler papers, 1950s-2020s". Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections Cornell Library. Archived from the original on 17 October 2023. Retrieved 15 October 2023.
