Jill K. Gill, who is on sabbatical this semester and pursuing a Fellowship in the Spring, is an interdisciplinary 20th century Americanist. She received her B.A. in American Studies from Whitworth College (1986) and her M.A. (1988) and Ph.D. (1996) in American Civilization from the University of Pennsylvania. As a historian with an interdisciplinary background and approach, she integrates anthropology, political science, and religion into her study and teaching of America’s past.
After a year-long post-doctoral research position with the Center for Social and Religious Research at Hartford Seminary, she taught for two years at the University of Findlay in Ohio before returning to her roots in the Pacific Northwest, joining the Boise State faculty as an Assistant Professor in 2000. She specializes in 20th century American social, cultural, political, and religious history with a research focus on the 1960s. Her book, Embattled Ecumenism: the National Council of Churches, the Vietnam War and the Trials of the Protestant Left (Northern Illinois University Press, 2011), explores the anti-Vietnam War efforts of ecumenical Protestants and helps explain the Protestant left’s decline in cultural and political influence. Currently, she is focusing on the history of race in Idaho, emphasizing black/white dynamics. Her published articles have appeared in Peace and Change, Religion and American Culture, the Journal of Presbyterian History, Methodist History, and the Pacific Northwest Quarterly.
Along with American survey courses, Gill teaches courses on the 1960s, the Vietnam War, the History of Multicultural America, American Religious History, Sexualities and American Society, Global Human Rights, and Civil Rights Movements in America.
