Karen Halttunen, professor of history at the University of Southern California, earned her Ph.D. from Yale University. Her works include CONFIDENCE MEN AND PAINTED WOMEN: A STUDY OF MIDDLE-CLASS CULTURE IN AMERICA, 1830-1870 (1982) and MURDER MOST FOUL: THE KILLER AND THE AMERICAN GOTHIC IMAGINATION (1998). She edited THE BLACKWELL COMPANION TO AMERICAN CULTURAL HISTORY (2008) and co-edited, with Lewis Perry, MORAL PROBLEMS IN AMERICAN LIFE: NEW ESSAYS ON CULTURAL HISTORY (1998). As president of the American Studies Association and as vice-president of the Teaching Division of the American Historical Association, she has actively promoted K-16 collaboration in teaching history. She has held fellowships from the Guggenheim and Mellon Foundations, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Huntington Library, and the National Humanities Center, and has been principal investigator on several Teaching American History grants from the Department of Education.
