Erin R. Battat, Ph.D.

Biography

Erin Royston Battat is assistant professor of american studies and ethnic studies. She received her Ph.D. from the history of american civilization program at Harvard University in 2008. She holds an M.A. in english from Harvard University and a B.A. in american studies from Georgetown University.  Dr. Battat has taught in the program in History & Literature at Harvard University, and was a fellow at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research in 2009. She is currently working on a book, Ain’t Got No Home: Race and American Migration Narratives in the Depression Era, that examines how writers and artists used stories of migration to advance an interracial reform movement.  Recent publications include “Literature, Social Science, and the Development of American Migration Narratives in the Twentieth Century” Literature Compass (March 2007), an essay on Steinbeck in The Grapes of Wrath: A Reconsideration (Rodopi 2009), and contributions to African American National Biography.  Dr. Battat has received fellowships from the American Association of University Women, Harvard University Graduate Society, and the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History. 

Research Interests

• African American and ethnic literature
• Proletarian literature
• 1930s literature and culture
• Migration and immigration
• Social movements
• Working-class women’s history
• Labor history