Roosevelt Montas

A.B., Columbia, (1995), M.A., Columbia (1996), Ph.D., Columbia (2004). Roosevelt Montás specializes in Antebellum American literature and culture, with a specific interest in citizenship and American national identity. His dissertation, "Rethinking America: Abolitionism and the Antebellum Transformation of the Discourse of National Identity," won the 2004 Bancroft Award. He is also Director of Columbia's Center for the Core Curriculum, where he has taught both Literature Humanities and Contemporary Civilization. Montas is currently writing on the interrelated biographies Ralph Waldo Emerson, Frederick Douglass, and Charles Sumner. He also lectures and writes on the history and future of liberal arts education.