Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen

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Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen is the Merle Curti Associate Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison). She is the author of American Nietzsche: A History of an Icon and His Ideas (University of Chicago Press, 2012). Ratner-Rosenhagen's research and teaching interests include the history of philosophy, political and social theory, religion, literature, and the visual arts; the transatlantic flow of intellectual and cultural movements; print culture; and cultural studies. Her publications are of both academic and general interest; all explore the links between intellectual life, the trafficking of ideas, and American culture.

At Radcliffe, Ratner-Rosenhagen is working on her book, “The American Ways of Wisdom and Wonder: Seeking the Good Life in the 20th-Century United States.” It is a history of “philosophy” (the love of wisdom) in 20th-century American life.

Ratner-Rosenhagen earned her PhD from Brandeis University in 2003. She has received numerous awards for her writing, including the Morris D. Forkosch Prize for the best first book in intellectual history, and her work has been supported by fellowships such as the Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship. Along with her academic scholarship and teaching, Ratner-Rosenhagen is the founder of the Intellectual History Group at UW-Madison, an informal, interdisciplinary working group for faculty and graduate students interested in the varieties of intellectual history and history of ideas.