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M. Rebecca Livingstone

Department Chair of History and Professor of History
Rebecca Livingstone brings an expertise in medieval, early modern European and British history to help students recognize the relevance of the past to our modern world.

Biography

For Prof. Livingstone, history is more than events of the past; it is the stories that we tell about the past in order to understand it and ourselves. She challenges students to think about history in a more in-depth and analytical fashion while developing important skills, such as writing and argumentation. Her courses focus not simply on what happened but on deciphering the worldview, beliefs and values of historical people and societies, to understand why the past unfolded as it did.

Prof. Livingstone is involved in the innovative, immersive pedagogy of Reacting to the Past, utilizing the historical role-playing simulations in her classes, authoring a game of her own and serving on the Board of the RTTP Game Development Conference.

She frequently takes students abroad for May Term to explore history where it happened.

Expertise

  • Medieval Europe
  • Early Modern (Renaissance-Reformation) Europe
  • British History
  • Crime and Punishment
  • Social and Cultural History
  • Women and Gender

Credentials

  • Ph.D. in History, Tulane University, 2007
  • Dissertation: "Unsettled Households": Domestic Homicide in Seventeenth-Century England
  • M.A. in History, Tulane University, 2001
  • B.A. in History, Lawrence University, 1997