Kate Baldwin

Professor Kate Baldwin holds appointments in the Department of English and Communication Studies, specializing in comparative literary and cultural histories. Her work bridges African-American intellectual engagement with Soviet communism and Cold War cultural diplomacy. She has held prestigious fellowships at institutions including Brown University, Johns Hopkins University, and Harvard University, and was a visiting professor at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris.

Education: Ph.D. in Comparative Literature (Yale University); B.A. in Comparative Literature and English (Amherst College).

Research focuses on intersections of race, domestic space, and transnational cultural exchange. Her book Beyond the Color Line and the Iron Curtain examines African-American modernism through Soviet intellectual ties. Recent work, The Racial Imaginary of the Cold War Kitchen (2016), analyzes Cold War-era design, film, and literature. Ongoing projects explore women, race, and labor via her course 'Motherhood and its Discontents.'

Awards include fellowships from Pembroke Center, Mellon Foundation, and Bunting Institute. Her scholarship appears in Cultural Critique, Diaspora, and American Literary History, with public-facing articles in Huffington Post and The Hill.

Teaching emphasizes critical approaches to media and marginalized voices. She advises students in interdisciplinary studies spanning English, Communication, and Gender & Sexuality.