Gerald Zahavi

I'm a professor of History and Director of the Documentary Studies Program at the University at Albany, State University of New York, where I have been since 1985. I completed my undergraduate education at Cornell (with a BA in European Intellectual History), and received my MA (in European Cultural History) and Ph.D. from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University (the latter with a specialization in modern U.S. economic, social, and labor history).

My academic research interests are diverse. They focus on such topics as: welfare capitalism (a book, The Open Hand of Capital: Welfare Capitalism Modern America, is under contract with Ivan Dee Press); the history of General Electric (projects include an oral history of the corporation and the GE Research Laboratory, as well as a documentary on the history of GE); labor and political radicalism in modern America (two books and a documentary film are currently underway on this); Cold War science and politics (several documentary projects focusing on atomic weapons and testing are in the works); and oral/aural history.

I am also very involved in Public History of all sorts – from digital history and website design and creation to filmmaking and radio production.