Heather Murray

Heather Murray is an Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of Ottawa's Faculty of Arts. She is an active scholar and educator with a focus on 20th-century American cultural and intellectual history, particularly post-1945 developments. She also serves as editor-in-chief of the Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences and associate editor for 20th-century American history at the American Historical Review.

Education:

• Ph.D., University of Massachusetts at Amherst

Research Interests:
Her research spans several interconnected areas, including the cultural and intellectual history of the United States, especially after 1945. She explores themes such as the evolving meanings of kinship among LGBTQ+ individuals and their families, the cultural representation of psychiatric patients, and the historical emergence of bullying as a social construct. Her current projects delve into the intellectual history of disability and the public discourse surrounding suicide prevention infrastructure.

Books and Awards:
She is the author of two major monographs: Not In This Family: Gays, Their Parents, and the Meanings of Kinship in Postwar America, which received the Lawrence Levine Award for Cultural History in 2011, and Asylum Ways of Seeing: Psychiatric Patients, American Thought and Culture (2021). Her ongoing work includes a third book on the history of bullying in 20th-century America, alongside two exploratory side projects.

Current Supervision:

• Heather McIntyre
• Lindsay Louise MacMillan

She actively supervises graduate students in the Department of History and contributes to the editorial leadership of two prominent historical journals, reflecting her sustained engagement with the academic community.