معرفی
Jacob A. C. Remes is a Clinical Associate Professor at New York University's Gallatin School of Individualized Study and associated faculty in the Department of History. He serves as Director of the Initiative for Critical Disaster Studies and has held teaching positions at Harvard University, Columbia University, Duke University, Meiji University in Tokyo, and SUNY Empire State College. His academic career reflects a deep commitment to interdisciplinary scholarship at the intersection of labor history, disaster studies, and North American social history.
Remes' research focuses on working-class and labor history of North America, with particular emphasis on urban disasters, working-class organizations, and migration. His scholarship challenges conventional approaches to disaster by highlighting how community solidarity and informal networks often prove more effective than top-down bureaucratic responses. His work connects historical analysis to contemporary issues in labor movements, urban planning, and disaster preparedness, arguing that communities with strong social networks and greater equality demonstrate greater resilience during crises.
His publications demonstrate consistent engagement with critical questions about power, citizenship, and community response. His book Disaster Citizenship: Survivors, Solidarity, and Power in the Progressive Era (2016) examines community responses to the Salem Fire of 1914 and Halifax Explosion of 1917, while his co-edited volume Critical Disaster Studies (2021) has helped define an emerging interdisciplinary field. His most recent work continues to explore the political dimensions of disaster, labor organizing in higher education, and transnational approaches to historical crises.
Among his notable recognitions are awards from the Canadian Committee on Labour History, the Labor and Working-Class History Association, Duke University, and Yale University. He has held prestigious fellowships including the William Lyon Mackenzie King Research Fellowship at Harvard, the Josephine de Karman Fellowship, and the American Council of Learned Societies/Andrew W. Mellon Recent Doctoral Recipients Fellowship.
Remes actively bridges academic scholarship and public engagement through popular writing in Time, The Atlantic, The Nation, and other outlets, as well as through his role as an elected member of the bargaining committee for Contract Faculty United – UAW since Spring 2024. His teaching at NYU encompasses disaster studies, labor history, food studies, the history of the welfare state, and environmental history, reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of his scholarly interests.
