Shaul Mitelpunkt
Faculty Ethics committee representative
Examinations Officer
Senior Lecturer in Modern History
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Profile
Biography
BA (Tel Aviv), MA (Chicago), PhD (Chicago)
Shaul Mitelpunkt is a Senior Lecturer in Modern History, specialising in 20th century U.S. history. Shaul's publications and teaching interests span a variety of fields including cultural, military, and transnational approaches to 20th century U.S. history. Shaul is especially interested in questions surrounding the relationship between the public and the military in a liberal democracy, and how these changed over time. Shaul is also interested in broader questions relating to war and society, gender and masculinity, as well as the way political ideas are negotiated and communicated in cultural products, such as film and comics. Shaul greatly enjoys academic collaboration with colleagues in the UK and elsewhere (for more on that see the 'Research' tab). Shaul enjoys following sports: he started following LFC since before they were good, and he still remembers the day Michael Jordan stood there and watched John Starks flying in for a dunk.
Shaul graduated from Tel Aviv University in 2006, before completing his MA and PhD at the University of Chicago in 2013. After a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at the department of history at Northwestern University, Shaul used the department at York in 2015. He is a member of the editorial board for the journal Modern American History, and would often be found in late June roaming the happy corridors where the meeting of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR) is held.
Departmental roles
Examinations Officer
Contact details
Research
Overview
Shaul's research interests span a variety of fields including cultural, political, military, and transnational approaches to 20th century U.S. history. Another way to put this, is that Shaul is interested in how questions of power are negotiated not only by policymakers, but by changing cultural and social norms. The possibility of tracing how ideas that seem common sensical change over time is one of things that appeal to him most about being an historian. He also greatly enjoys uncanny stories emerging from primary sources, and considers historians as analysts and storytellers combined.
Shaul is currently working on a book examining how Americans dealt with the dilemma of military service between 1940 to the present day. It asks how did Americans first normalise and naturalise the draft order (1940-1973) before undoing this order and legitimising the All-Volunteer Force (AVF) in its stead (1973-). Going beyond policymaking arena alone, Shaul positions this historical process in the public realm: showing how writers, artists, scholars, public intellectuals, students, protestors, and soldiers all invested different meanings in military service at different times. It argues that while the question of who should serve in the military was a major public dilemma in American life in the middle of the twentieth century, that question has receded from view during the AVF era. By undertaking this project Shaul seeks to help revitalise that question, which goes to the heart of questions surrounding civic responsibility, individual freedom, and the state's use of violence.
Shaul has been working closely with Oleg Benesch (York), Charlotta Salmi (Queen Mary), and a range of experts on graphic narratives and history for a series in The American Historical Review. This project compiles a series of conversations where scholars who have studied the problems of graphic narratives and history in various contexts share their expertise, ideas, how-to tips on teaching and research, and advice to historians who are interested in producing graphic histories. On a practical level, the project aims to create resources that scholars and teachers can use to learn about graphic histories from around the world, identify relevant comics archives in different regions, and gain insights on teaching with and about graphic narratives. The first instalment on ‘Graphic Narratives and History in the Americas’ was published in March 2025.
Shaul's first book, Israel in the American Mind: the Cultural Politics of U.S.-Israeli Relations, 1958-1988 (Cambridge University Press, 2018) [please include hyperlink and book image] examined the changing meanings Americans and Israelis invested in the relationship between their countries from the late 1950s to the 1980s. The book argues that Americans in the 1950s and 1960s were captivated by the image of Israel as a nation of citizen-soldiers. That fascination emerged both out of American boosterism of the citizen-soldier in the domestic context, and from Israeli state and non-state actors propagating that perception to American observers. Going beyond the diplomatic elite, the book traces how Americans normalised their support of Israel with shifting rationals through time. It also shows that while the Israeli political leadership as well as cultural elite often sought American support and approval, there were also Israeli counter-currents that saw American patronage as problematic and tried to negotiated the terms of American influence.
Shaul is happy to receive interest from prospective PhD students relating to different facets of U.S. political, military, cultural, and transnational history.
Shaul’s work appeared in the American Historical Review, Diplomatic History, Modern American History, the Journal for Jewish Studies, Gender & History, and the Washington Post, among other outlets.
Teaching
Undergraduate
Special Subject: 'The Public in Conflict: War and Society in 20th Century U.S.'
Postgraduate
An example of modules taught:
Student Hours