Micki McElya

Micki McElya is a professor of history at the University of Connecticut, specializing in the histories of women, gender, race, and sexuality in the United States from the Civil War to the present, with an emphasis on political culture and memory. Her most recent book, The Politics of Mourning: Death and Honor in Arlington National Cemetery was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and received a number of other accolades; her 2007 book, Clinging to Mammy: The Faithful Slave in Twentieth-Century America was the cowinner of a 2007 Outstanding Book Award from the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights. McElya has written for The Atlantic and Boston Review, and her work has been featured in The New York Times, NPR, MSNBC, The Nation, Elle, and more. She is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College and New York University and is a Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.