"I was drawn to study history because I am fascinated with the history of ideas. That many aspects of the past were different from our present gives me hope that other changes may be possible in our future. Some of my students love immersing themselves in the details of a different world, other people, and other eras. Many choose to study history because they understand that one cannot fully understand the present without knowing the past that produced it.”


  
 
Cynthia J. Koepp
 
 

Professor Koepp’s specific area of research is the 18th century European Enlightenment, especially looking at the changing notions and debates about work and leisure, education, and the organization of knowledge. In teaching, what she enjoys most is looking with students at an idea, concept, or event and discovering the historical conditions and actions that made it possible.

Education:
1971     B.A. (cum laude) The University of Toledo
1974     M.A. The University of Toledo, Philosophy
1978     M.A. Cornell University, History
1992     Ph.D. Cornell University, History

Select Publications:
Koepp, C.J., Immel, A. (ed.), & Witmore, M. (ed.). “Curiosity, Science, and Experiential Learning in the Abbé Pluche’s, Spectacle de la Nature,” in Seen and Heard: the Child in Early Modern Europe. London: Routledge, (forthcoming 2005).

Koepp, C.J., Brewer, D., (ed.), & Hayes, J. C. (ed.). "Making Money: Artisans and Entrepreneurs in Diderot's Encyclopédie," in Using the Encyclopédie: Ways of Knowing, Ways of Reading. Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, 2002 .

Koepp, C.J. & Plessis, A. (ed.). "Before Liberty: The Ideology of Work, Taste, and the Social Order," in Naissances des libertés économiques: Liberté du travail et liberté d'entreprendres: Le décret d'Allard et le loi Le Chapelier. Leurs conséquences 1791-fin dix neuvième siècle. Paris: Ministère de l'interieur et du developpement industriel, 1994.

Koepp, C.J. & Kaplan, S.L (eds.). Work in France: Representations, Meaning, Organization and Practice. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986.

Courses Taught:
Enlightenment and the French Revolution
Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe
Introduction to the History of Science, antiquity to 1900
The Growth of Industrial Society, 1750-present
A Social History of Food and Eating
Writing History: Theory and Practice
Colonial Encounters
A History of Women in Europe, 1450 - present
From the Plague to AIDS: A Cultural History Disease and Epidemics
Introduction to World History, antiquity to present
20th Century Europe

Last updated: 10/04/2005

 
Professor of History

Frances Tarlton Farenthold Presidential Professor

cjkoepp@wells.edu
315.364.3224
Macmillan 105