Dr. Katherine Ranum
Visiting Professor, History Department.
Katherine R. Ranum graduated from the University of Cincinnati with a specialty in religious histories of the Atlantic world. While her master’s research focused on faith and performances of masculinity during the First World War, her dissertation explored religious communities in England, North America, and Jamaica struggling to understand, accommodate, or stigmatize disability from 1680 to 1860. She also researches folk religion and culture especially as concerns death and burial practices.
Dr. Ranum began her relationship with Xavier as an adjunct and will serve as a visiting assistant professor in the department of history for the 2023-2024 academic year. Her class offerings include:
- HIST-199: Death and Mourning in United State History,
- HIST-199: History of Disability Since the Middle Ages,
- HIST-199: Religion in American Society.
Dr. Ranum has published book reviews in the Ohio Valley Journal and the American Jewish Archives Journal, an editorial on teaching in Fides et Historia, and research from her dissertation in the 2021 Annual Proceedings, Living with Disabilities in New England, 1630-1930 hosted by the Dublin Folklife Seminar. She has also spoken about her research to both academic and public audiences.
Aside from history, she also loves hiking, breakfast foods, rearranging her furniture, and pampering her Spaniel Bennett.