Carl Dyke, PhD
Professor of History; Coordinator, Interdisciplinary Studies
B.A., Temple University; Ph.D., University of California at San Diego
Bio:
I've been at MU since 1999! Before that I taught at Cal State East Bay and UC Santa Cruz among other Bay Area schools.
My doctorate is in Modern European History. I've also taught Philosophy, Human Development, and Sociology. At MU I teach mostly World History of all sorts. I like to learn and I'm not done yet.
My research is on theories and practices of change, identity, and complex adaptive systems. My wife and I also own a farm where we practice regenerative agriculture with a team of pigs, goats, dogs, cats, chickens, ducks, geese, guinea fowl, birds, snakes, rodents, hawks, buzzards, coyotes, pollinators, beetles, fungal mycelia, soil bacteria, and neighbors.
Professor of History
B.A., Hunter College of the City University of New York; M.A., Columbia University; Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Bio:
I'm originally from New York, which is also where I got my B.A. and my Masters degrees before moving to North Carolina to finish my Ph.D at UNC Chapel Hill. I was trained as a medieval historian, but I also teach classes in ancient history, the history of the Renaissance and Reformation and the history of early science. My own particular areas of interest are medieval cultural and intellectual history. I’m especially interested in how people in earlier times thought about and wrote history Currently I’m researching and writing about accounts of interreligious relations and violence in the period of the Crusades. In addition to being a historian, I’m also a musician. I play the piano and I sometimes sing, these days with the North Carolina Master Chorale in Raleigh.
Patrick O’Neil, PhD
Associate Professor of History; Co-Director, Women's Studies; Coordinator, Social Studies Education
B.A., Grinnell College; M.A., Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Bio:
Patrick W. O’Neil is Chair and Associate Professor of History; he is also Co-Director of Women’s Studies.
His research focuses on America in the years before the Civil War, encompassing politics, culture, and gender, and he is hard at work on a book about weddings during that time. The book is called Inventing the American Wedding, and it compares the way that various Americans married when the white wedding was still a new thing.
As a teacher, Professor O’Neil believes that people learn best when they have the chance to figure things out for themselves. His courses ask students to lead class discussions and to research difficult ideas; the assumption is that if you come ready to play, you can match wits with the best thinkers in America. He won Methodist University’s Distinguished Professor of the Year award in 2014.
When Professor O’Neil is stressed out, he goes for a run. Otherwise, he spends an unhealthy amount of time thinking about North Carolina Tar Heels basketball, Nebraska Cornhuskers football, the Beatles, and barbecue
Tumblr: http://paddyoneilio.tumblr.com