Assistant Professor/ Part-time instructor
PhD York University
MA McMaster University
GLN A 239
Ext. 4231
dcucuz@brocku.ca
Area of Expertise
Postwar/Cold War American History; Women’s History; Cultural History
I specialize in American, women’s and cultural history, and the intersections of foreign and domestic policy with politics, society, and culture. My research focuses on the ways in which the U.S. government and media politicized women, traditional gender roles, and consumer culture during the Cold War. My first book, Winning Women’s Hearts and Minds (University of Toronto Press, 2023), demonstrates how print culture was utilized to deploy images of supposedly happy American women as feminine wives, mothers, and homemakers living within a capitalist consumer culture. Through “polite propaganda,” such as the Ladies’ Home Journal and Amerika, the U.S. government hoped to convince American and Russian women of the superiority of the American way of life, and simultaneously undermine the Soviet regime. I teach both at Brock and Toronto Metropolitan University in diverse areas, including 20th-century American social, cultural, and urban history, as well as foreign policy.
Winning Women’s Hearts and Minds: Selling Cold War Culture in the US and USSR. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. February 2023. https://utorontopress.com/9781487518738/winning-women-and-x2019s-hearts-and-minds/
“Winning Women’s Hearts and Minds”: Citizen Diplomacy as Women’s Liberation during the Cold War.” Paper to be presented at the Association for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies Conference, Boston, Massachusetts, November 21-24, 2024.
“Not Merely a ‘Kitchen Debate:’ Recognizing the Importance of Gender, Culture, and Foreign Policy in the Soviet Union Before, During, and After 1959.” Panel presented at the Society for the Historians of American Foreign Relations Conference, Toronto, Ontario, June 14, 2024.
“Winning Women’s Hearts and Minds: Selling Cold War Culture in the US and the USSR.” Webinar before the Working Group on Post-Socialist and Comparative Memory Studies (PoSoCoMeS) at the Memory Studies Association of Central European University, Budapest, Hungary, January 22, 2024
“Winning Women’s Hearts and Minds: Selling Cold War Culture in the US and the USSR.” Webinar before the McMaster University Alumni Association, Hamilton, Ontario. November 22, 2023.
“Winning Women’s Hearts and Minds: Selling Cold War Culture in the US and the USSR.” Book presentation at Bishop’s University, Sherbrooke, Quebec. November 15, 2023.
“Receiving the Cold Shoulder? The Historical Importance of the Often Neglected Cultural Diplomacy, Gender, and Economics during the Cold War.” Paper presented at the Society for the Historians of American Foreign Relations Conference, Washington D.C, June 15-17, 2023.
Winning Women’s Hearts and Minds: Selling Cold War Culture in the US and the USSR.” Paper presented at the Popular Culture Association/American Cultural Association National Conference, April 4-8, 2023.
“Winning Women’s Hearts and Minds: Selling Cold War Culture in the US and the USSR.” Presentation at the Program in American Studies Lecture Series, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, February 9, 2023.
“Winning Women’s Hearts and Minds: Selling Cold War Culture in the US and the USSR.” Presentation at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy Series of Events, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, January 19, 2023.
HIST 1F95 World History Since 1914 (Fall 2024)
