Dan Berger

Professor

Associate Dean for Faculty Development and Scholarship

Dan Berger

B.A. Interdisciplinary Studies, University of Florida
B.S. Journalism, University of Florida
Ph.D. Communications, University of Pennsylvania

Office: UW2-308
Phone: 425-352-3744
Email: daberger@uw.edu
Mailing Box: 358530, 18115 Campus Way NE, Bothell, WA 98011-8246

Teaching

Teaching, to me, is an act of mentorship. I view the classroom as a space where students can ask questions, pose challenges, experiment with ideas, and discuss key concerns about the world in a supportive environment. I see my role as a teacher in helping students think critically and creatively鈥攁bout both course materials and society at large. The classroom is not a bubble separate from the rest of the world but rather a laboratory in which to understand it. I try to minimize the gap between what we study and the 鈥渞eal world鈥� by animating the ways complex ideas and histories continue to structure our daily experiences and practices. My classes utilize a variety of mechanisms, from small group discussions and student-led presentations to a range of participatory activities, to work through core concepts. Learning is a collaborative process, done through individual and collective work, and my classes try to strike that balance. I hope that by participating in their own learning students will take intellectual risks鈥攚ill engage new concepts thoughtfully and articulate taken-for-granted concepts differently.

Recent Courses Taught

BIS 256 Introduction to African American Studies
BIS 336 History of Mass Incarceration
BIS 340 Approaches to Cultural Research
BISAES 305 Power, Dissent, and American Culture
BCULST 570 Prisons, Politics and Activism

Research/Scholarship

I am an interdisciplinary historian of activism, Black Power, and the carceral state in twentieth century U.S. history. My research pursues a human accounting of how freedom and violence have shaped the United States. Much of my work is located in critical prison studies, including the diverse ways in which imprisonment has shaped social movements, racism, and American politics since World War II.

My latest book is听听which is a biography of the modern Black freedom struggle through the lives of Zoharah Simmons and Michael Simmons. Published in 2023, the book has already been hailed as “a triumph in storytelling” (Hanif Abdurraqib) and a “rare, intimate portrait … that will join classics on this period” (Imani Perry). My other books include听,听which won the 2015 James A. Rawley Prize from the Organization of American Historians;听, coauthored with Toussaint Losier; and听, coedited with Emily Hobson.

I am a firm believer in public scholarship. I co-curate the听, a digital archive of prisoner activism and prison policy in our state. I write often for public audiences in听Black Perspectives, Boston Review, Truthout, and the Washington Post, among elsewhere. At the UW, I am an affiliate member of the听, the听, and the听, and I co-direct the听. Beyond the university, I am on the advisory or editorial boards of the听,听The Global Sixties, the Journal of Civil and Human Rights,听and the听at UNC Press.

Selected Publications

Books

  •  (Basic Books, 2023)
  •  (University of Georgia Press, 2020; coedited with Emily Hobson)
  •  (Routledge, 2018; coauthored with Toussaint Losier).
  •  (University of North Carolina Press, 2014).
  •  Rutgers University Press, 2010.
  • . AK Press, 2006.

Articles/Chapters

  • Dan Berger, Magdalena Donea, Denise Hattwig, and Danielle Rowland, PUBLIC 5: 2.
  •  in Ethan Hoffman and John A. McCoy, Concrete Mama: Prison Profiles from Walla Walla (University of Washington Press, 2018).
  • 鈥淎merica Means Prison: Political Prisoners in the age of Black Power,鈥� in Sylviane Diouf and Komozi Woodard, eds., Black Power 50: An Exhibition Catalog (The New Press, 2016).
  • 鈥淪ubjugated Knowledges: Activism, Scholarship, and Ethnic Studies Ways of Knowing,鈥� in Critical Ethnic Studies Editorial Collective, eds., Critical Ethnic Studies: A Reader. (Duke University Press, 2016).
  • “A Common Citizenship of Freedom鈥�: What Black Power Taught Chicago鈥檚 Puerto Rican independentistas,鈥� in Brian Behnken, ed., Civil Rights and Beyond: African American and Latino/a Activism in the Twentieth Century United States (University of Georgia Press, 2016).
  • 鈥淐arceral Journeys: Blackness, Migration, and Slavery in 1970s California Prison Radicalism,鈥� in Moon-Ho Jung, ed., Race, Radicalism and Repression on the Pacific Coast and Beyond. (University of Washington Press, 2014).
  • Punishment and Society 11: 4 (2009).
  • Journal for the Study of Radicalism, 3: 1 (2009).