Kathleen Vongsathorn
Associate Professor
Peck Hall 1232
Office Phone: 618-650-2413
Email: kvongsa@siue.edu
Education
D.Phil. in Modern History (University of Oxford, 2013)
M.Sc. in the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology (University of Oxford, 2008)
B.A. in History (Carleton College, 2007)
Research Focus
History of Medicine
African History
Undergraduate STEM Education
Humanitarianism
Women's Health
History of Childhood
Courses Taught
HIST 101: Pandemics in History
HIST 112B: World History, 1500 to Present
HIST 133: A History of Magical Creatures
HIST 211A: Africa Before Colonialism
HIST 313: Monsters, Magic, and the Unnatural
HIST/WMST 332: Women, Health, and Science in History
HIST 333: Decolonizing Health and Science
HIST 400: Global Health and African History
HIST 439: Aid to Africa: Humanitarianism and Development in African History
HIST 500D: Magic, Health, and Science
Publications
"Historiography of Emotions in Africa," in Peter Stearns and Katie Barclay (eds.) The Routledge History of Emotions in the Modern World (Routledge, 2022).
‘“Our Loathsome Ancestors”: Reinventing Medieval Leprosy for the Modern World, 1850–1950’, in Elma Brenner and Francois Olivier-Touati (eds.) Leprosy and Identity in the Middle Ages: From England to the Mediterranean (Manchester University Press, 2021).
Jane Stevens-Crawshaw, Irena Benyovsky, and Kathleen Vongsathorn (eds.), Tracing hospital boundaries: integration and segregation in Southeastern Europe and beyond, 1050-1970 (Brill, 2020).
"Teaching, Learning, and Adapting Emotions in Uganda's Child Leprosy Settlement, c. 1930-62," in Stephanie Olsen (ed.), Childhood, Youth and Emotions in Modern History: National, Colonial, and Global Perspectives (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).
"'A Real Home': Children, Family, Mission, and the Negotiation of Life at the Kumi Children's Leper Home in Colonial Uganda," Journal for the History of Childhood and Youth 8, no. 1 (2015), 55-74.
"Public Health or Public Good? Humanitarian Agendas and the Treatment of Leprosy in Uganda," in Bronwen Everill and Josiah Kaplan (eds.), The History and Practice of Humanitarian Intervention and Aid in Africa (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 43-66.
"Discovering the 'Leper': Shifting Attitudes towards Leprosy in Twentieth-Century Uganda’, in Jonathan Reinarz and Kevin Siena (eds.), A Medical History of Skin: Scratching the Surface (Pickering and Chatto, 2013), 99-111.
"Gnawing Pains, Festering Ulcers, and Nightmare Suffering: Selling Leprosy as a Humanitarian Cause in the British Empire, c. 1890-1960," Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 40, no. 5 (2012), 863-78.
"First and Foremost the Evangelist? Mission and Government Priorities for the Treatment of Leprosy in Uganda, 1927-48," Journal of Eastern African Studies 6, no. 3 (2012), 544-60.
