Penny Marie Von Eschen is an American historian and Professor of History and William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of American Studies at the University of Virginia. She is known for her works on American and African-American history, American diplomacy, the

history of music Although definitions of music vary wildly throughout the world, every known culture partakes in it, and it is thus considered a cultural universal. The origins of music remain highly contentious; commentators often relate it to the origin of ...

, and their connections with decolonization.

Education and career

Von Eschen graduated from Northwestern University with a bachelor's degree in philosophy in 1982. She completed a Ph.D. from the department of history at Columbia University in 1994; her dissertation was ''African-Americans and colonialism, 1937–1957: The rise and fall of the politics of the African diaspora''. She was an assistant professor of history at the University of Iowa from 1994 to 1996, and at the University of Texas at Austin from 1996 to 1999. Next, she became an associate professor of history and American culture at the University of Michigan, and was promoted to professor there in 2006. In 2015 she moved to Cornell University as the L. Sanford and Jo Mills Reis Professor of Humanities, before moving again to Virginia.

Books

Von Eschen's book on trumpeter

Louis Armstrong Louis Daniel Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed "Satchmo", "Satch", and "Pops", was an American trumpeter and vocalist. He was among the most influential figures in jazz. His career spanned five decades and several era ...

and the Jazz ambassadors program of the United States Department of State, ''Satchmo Blows Up the World: Jazz Ambassadors Play the Cold War'' (2004) was first runner-up for the John Hope Franklin Publication Prize for the Best Book in American Studies in 2005. A feature-length documentary film, ''The Jazz Ambassadors'' (2018), was inspired in part by the book, and Von Eschen herself appears as a commentator in the film. She also wrote ''Race against Empire: Black Americans and Anticolonialism, 1937–1957'' (1997). Von Eschen is coeditor of ''Contested Democracy: Freedom, Race, and Power in American History'' (2007) and of ''American Studies: An Anthology'' (2009).''American Studies: An Anthology'' (edited with

Janice Radway Janice Radway (born January 29, 1949) is an American literary and cultural studies scholar. Education Radway holds a BA from Michigan State University, 1971, and an MA from State University of New York, Stony Brook, 1972. She earned her PhD from M ...

, Kevin Gaines, and Barry Shank), Wiley, 2009, . Review: *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Von Eschen, Penny Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American historians American women historians Northwestern University alumni Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni University of Iowa faculty University of Texas at Austin faculty University of Michigan faculty Cornell University faculty University of Virginia faculty 21st-century American women