Journal of Transnational American Studies

This essay, originally written to celebrate Thomas Bender’s retirement from New York University in 2015, explores topics related to integrating transnational approaches in the US history curriculum and in the education of graduate students. The author finds that transnationalizing the general education course on the US since 1945 engages students from diverse backgrounds and, rather than “leaving out” significant historical content, simply offers a different framing of the American past. Graduate student research on transnational topics, on the other hand, poses financial, linguistic, and archival challenges to all students, but especially to those not enrolled in elite doctoral programs.