I am a historian, writer, and speaker at Washington University in St. Louis, where I currently serve as a professor and as associate vice dean of research in Arts & Sciences. I study politics, policymaking, and culture in the United States. I work with scholars, students, public organizations, and general audiences to understand the American past.
About My Work
My teaching and research follow two different directions. I am a historian of the half-century following the Declaration of Independence, an era that scholars usually call the early American republic. I am also a scholar of the American Presidency, from its origins in the eighteenth century through its current manifestation in the present day.
I do this work in both new and familiar ways. I write books and teach classes that involve the close and careful reading of written sources. I am also a digital historian, with over thirty years of experience working on projects to make constructive use of digital methods in both research and teaching.
In addition to my academic scholarship, I am an actively engaged public historian, working locally with public institutions and schools as well as nationally with historical and educational organizations.
In my work on the early American republic, I am particularly interested in the connections between political institutions and people’s daily lives. This is partly the story of founding fathers like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Alexander Hamilton. I explore how these politicians went about building the institutions of government. But it is also the story of how average Americans responded and sought to realize their own visions of what it would mean to be American.
My work on the Presidency operates similarly. While I often discuss how presidential candidates get nominated and elected, or how Presidents seek to advance their agenda in office, I am primarily interested in how Americans interact with the Presidency. I explore how the American public at large shapes the Presidency as well as the ways that Americans seek to use their Presidents as lessons about democracy and dictatorship, strength and weakness, honesty and dishonesty. I look at how Americans memorialize, how Presidents are represented on film and television, and why Americans remember some Presidents while forgetting others.
Connect
pjkastor[at]wustl.edu
(314) 935 – 7663
History Department
Washington University in St. Louis
MSC 1062-107-114
Busch Hall 113
One Brookings Drive
St. Louis, MO 63130-4899
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Peter Kastor 