John Boonstra, PhD

John Boonstra is a Teaching Assistant Professor in the College of General Studies and in the Department of History of the Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences. Before coming to Pitt, he taught and advised students at Boston University, Harvard College, and the Harvard Extension School, and held a Max Weber Postdoctoral Fellowship at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. He earned a PhD and MA in History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a BA at Swarthmore College.

In his teaching and research, Dr. Boonstra is interested in modern histories of race, gender, colonialism, and migration between Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. His current project, "Colonizing the Great War: Race, Sex, and Violence in Imperial Borderlands," follows two sets of French colonial troops during and after the First World War as they were mobilized, redeployed, and mistrusted across borders and amongst local populations. He is also at work on two articles that explore tensions between French nuns and industrialists in early twentieth-century Lebanon and between Lebanese volunteers, spies, and French military personnel in the eastern Mediterranean during wartime.

Courses Taught at Pitt

• HIST 1060 - Global History of Piracy
• HIST 1175 - Xenophobia in Modern Europe