Lynn Avery Hunt (born November 16, 1945) is the

Eugen Weber Eugen Joseph Weber (April 24, 1925 – May 17, 2007) was a Romanian-born American historian with a special focus on Western world, Western civilization. Weber became a historian because of his interest in politics, an interest dating back to a ...

Professor of Modern European History at the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

. Her area of expertise is the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...

, but she is also well known for her work in European cultural history on such topics as

gender Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures u ...

. Her 2007 work, ''Inventing Human Rights'', has been heralded as the most comprehensive analysis of the

history of human rights While belief in the sanctity of human life has ancient precedents in many religions of the world, the foundations of modern human rights began during the era of renaissance humanism in the early modern period. The European wars of religion and th ...

. She served as president of the

American Historical Association The American Historical Association (AHA) is the oldest professional association of historians in the United States and the largest such organization in the world. Founded in 1884, the AHA works to protect academic freedom, develop professional s ...

in 2002. Born in

Panama Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Cos ...

and raised in St. Paul, Minnesota, she has her B.A. from

Carleton College Carleton College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Northfield, Minnesota. Founded in 1866, it had 2,105 undergraduate students and 269 faculty members in fall 2016. The 200-acre main campus is between Northfield and the 800-acre Cowling ...

(1967) and her M.A. (1968) and Ph.D. (1973) from

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

. Before coming to UCLA she taught at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

(1974–1987) and the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

(1987–1998). Prof. Hunt teaches French and

European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD 500), the Middle Ages (AD 500 to AD 1500), and the modern era (since AD 1500). The first early ...

and the

history of history as an academic discipline Historiography is the study of the methods of historians in developing history as an academic discipline, and by extension is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of a specific topic covers how historians hav ...

. Her specialties include the

, gender history,

cultural history Cultural history combines the approaches of anthropology and history to examine popular cultural traditions and cultural interpretations of historical experience. It examines the records and narrative descriptions of past matter, encompassing the ...

and

historiography Historiography is the study of the methods of historians in developing history as an academic discipline, and by extension is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of a specific topic covers how historians ha ...

. Her current research projects include a collaborative study of an early 18th-century work on

comparative religion Comparative religion is the branch of the study of religions with the systematic comparison of the doctrines and practices, themes and impacts (including migration) of the world's religions. In general the comparative study of religion yie ...

that appeared in 7 volumes with 275 engravings by the artist

Bernard Picart Bernard Picart or Picard (11 June 1673 – 8 May 1733), was a French draughtsman, engraver, and book illustrator in Amsterdam, who showed an interest in cultural and religious habits. Life Picart was born in rue Saint-Jacques, Paris as ...

. In 1982 Hunt received a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

to study French History. Hunt was elected to the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

in 2003. In 2014 she was elected a

Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy Fellowship of the British Academy (FBA) is an award granted by the British Academy to leading academics for their distinction in the humanities and social sciences. The categories are: # Fellows – scholars resident in the United Kingdom # C ...

Bibliography

Books

* * ''The Failure of the Liberal Republic in France, 1795–1799: The Road to Brumaire'', coauthored with David Lansky and Paul Hanson in ''The Journal of Modern History'' Vol. 51, No. 4, December 1979. * ''Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution'' (1984) * ''The New Cultural History'' (1989) * ''The Family Romance of the French Revolution'' (1992) * ''Telling the Truth about History'' (W. W. Norton, 1994) * ''Histories: French Constructions of the Past'' (1995) * ''The French Revolution and Human Rights: A Brief Documentary History(1996) * ''Beyond the Cultural Turn'' (1999) * ''Liberty, equality, fraternity: exploring the French Revolution'' ook, CD, and website(2001) * ''The Making of the West: Peoples and Cultures'' (2005) * ''Inventing Human Rights: A History'' (W. W. Norton, 2007)*''Inventing Human Rights: A History'' (W. W. Norton, 2007) *
La storia culturale nell'età globale
', Edizioni ETS, Pisa, 2010 * ''Writing History in the Global Era'' (W. W. Norton, 2014) * ''History: Why it Matters'' (2018)

Book reviews

References

External links

Lynn A. Hunt at UCLA Department of History
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hunt, Lynn Living people 1945 births 21st-century American historians 21st-century American women writers American women historians Corresponding Fellows of the British Academy Feminist historians The New York Review of Books people Presidents of the American Historical Association Stanford University alumni University of California, Berkeley College of Letters and Science faculty University of California, Los Angeles faculty University of Pennsylvania faculty Carleton College alumni Historians from California Members of the American Philosophical Society