The Metropolitan History Workshop is an initiative to bring scholars who work in the areas of metropolitan (urban and suburban) studies, public policy, political history, race and ethnicity, and other related fields to the University of Michigan. The main events include book workshops and panel discussions designed for graduate students combined with public lectures and roundtables by visiting scholars open to the campus community.
Professor Matt Lassiter started the Metropolitan History Workshop in 2005 with generous funding from the College of Literature, Science and the Arts and the Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies. The Metropolitan History Workshop sponsored regular programming from 2005-2015 and now operates in a reduced capacity, mainly bringing scholars to campus when Lassiter is teaching the graduate seminar in Urban/Suburban History or through co-sponsorships with the American History Workshop and other graduate student-oriented groups.
Since 2005, the Metropolitan History workshop has brought 60 scholars to the University of Michigan campus.
2019
- Book Workshop-LaShawn Harris (Michigan State University)
- Book Workshop-Lily Geismer (Claremont-McKenna College)
- Book Workshop-Nathan Connolly (Johns Hopkins)
2017
- Public Lecture and Book Workshop-Kelly Lytle Hernandez (UCLA)
2015
- Roundtable: Historians and the Roots of Mass Incarceration—Donna Murch (Rutgers University), Heather Thompson (University of Michigan)
- Roundtable: Urban History and Latino/a Studies—Lilia Fernández (Ohio State University) and UM Graduate Students
- Book Workshop—Lilia Fernández (Ohio State University)
- Book Workshop—Samuel Zipp (Brown University)
- Book Workshop—Julilly Kohler-Hausmann (Cornell University)
- Public Lecture—Nathan Connolly (Johns Hopkins)
2014
- Public Lecture and Book Workshop—Michael Willrich (Brandeis University) 2013
- Roundtable: Sexuality and Politics in Modern American History—Robert Self (Brown University), Clay Howard (Ohio State University), David Halperin (University of Michigan)
- Book Workshop—Tracy Neumann (Wayne State University)
- Book Workshop—David Montejano (UC-Berkeley)
- Article Workshop—Amy Chazkel (Queens College)
- Roundtable: The New Political History: American Political Culture from the New Deal through the Cold War—James Sparrow (University of Chicago), Wendy Wall (Binghamton University)
2012
- Roundtable: The “Long 1970s” and the Quest for Meta-Narratives in Recent U.S. History—Marissa Chappell (Oregon State University) and U-M graduate students
- Book Workshop: Margot Canaday (Princeton University)
- Book Workshop—Doug Rossinow (Metropolitan State University)
- Book Workshop—Lily Geismer (Claremont-McKenna College)
- Film Screening and Roundtable—The Pruitt-Igoe Myth (with director Chad Freidrichs)
2011
- Roundtable: The Place of Jews in Modern American History—Tony Michels (University of Wisconsin), Eric Goldstein (Emory University), Lila Corwin Berman (Temple University)
- Book Workshop—Daniel HoSang (University of Oregon)
- Book Workshop—Khalil Muhammad (Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture)
2010
- Book Workshop—Risa Goluboff (University of Virginia)
- Book Workshop—Kevin Mumford (University of Illinois)
- Book Workshop—Danielle McGuire (Wayne State University)
- Public Lecture and Book Workshop—Nayan Shah (UC-San Diego)
2009
- Roundtable: The Sunbelt and Modern American Political Transformation—Darren Dochuk (Purdue University), Michelle Nickerson (University of Texas at Dallas)
- Public Lecture and Book Workshop—Bryant Simon (Temple University)
- Book Workshop—Anthony Chen (Northwestern University)
- Public Lecture and Book Workshop—Jefferson Cowie (Cornell University)
2008
- Roundtable: The Black Middle Class: The Politics of Race and Class in Cities and Suburbs—Mary Pattillo (Northwestern University), Karyn Lacy (University of Michigan), Angela Dillard (University of Michigan)
2007
- Roundtable: Cities After the Fall: Decline and Renewal in Post-Industrial Cities—Howard Gillette (Rutgers University), June Manning Thomas (University of Michigan)
- Public Lecture and Book Workshop—Margaret O-Mara (University of Washington)
- Public Lecture and Book Workshop—Alison Isenberg (Rutgers University)
- Public Lecture and Book Workshop—David Freund (University of Maryland)
- Public Lecture and Book Workshop—Rhonda Williams (Case Western University)
- Book Workshop—Meg Jacobs (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
- Book Workshop—Adam Rome (Pennsylvania State University)
2006
- Roundtable: The New Black Power Studies—Komozi Woodard (Sarah Lawrence College), Jeanne Theoharis (Brooklyn College), Heather Ann Thompson (University of North at Charlotte)
- Book Workshop—Komozi Woodard (Sarah Lawrence College)
- Public Lecture—Heather Ann Thompson (University of North Carolina at Charlotte)
- Public Lecture and Book Workshop—Felicia Kornbluh (Duke University)
- Public Lecture and Book Workshop—Eric Avila (University of California Los Angeles)
- Book Workshop—Rick Perlstein (Independent Author)
- Roundtable: Immigration History since 1965—David Reimers (New York University), Jesse Hoffnung-Garskof (University of Michigan)
2005
- Roundtable: Southern Politics and the Transformation of American Conservatism—Kevin Kruse (Princeton University), Joseph Crespino (Emory University)
- Public Lecture and Book Workshop—Andrew Wiese (San Diego State University)
- Public Lecture and Book Workshop—Bryant Simon (Temple University)
- Public Lecture and Book Workshop—Robert Self (Brown University)