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Carla Bittel

Professor of History

Los Angeles , CA, UNITED STATES

Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts

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Publications

Image for publication on Mary Putnam Jacobi and the Politics of Medicine in Nineteenth-Century America (Studies in Social Medicine)Image for publication on Working with Paper: Gendered Practices in the History of Knowledge

Documents

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Audio/Podcasts

Video

Biography

Carla Bittel is Professor of History at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. She is a historian of medicine, science, & technology and specializes in nineteenth-century America. Bittel’s research focuses on gender, health and healing practices, the material cultures of science, and the politics of knowledge. Her first book, Mary Putnam Jacobi and the Politics of Medicine in Nineteenth-Century America (University of North Carolina Press, 2009), analyzes contestations over women’s health and medical knowledge through a biographical study of New York physician and activist, Mary Putnam Jacobi (1842-1906). Bittel is co-editor, with Elaine Leong and Christine von Oertzen, of the volume, Working with Paper: Gendered Practices in the History of Knowledge (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019). She has also published several articles and chapters in edited volumes.

Bittel’s current research focuses on the brain and mind sciences of the nineteenth century and re-examines the history of phrenology by concentrating on its users, who applied, adapted and contested it as a source of knowledge. She is now finishing her book project, A Most Useful and Peculiar Science: Phrenology in Practice in the Nineteenth Century. Bittel’s research has been supported by several grants and fellowships, including an NSF Scholars Award and a Dibner Research Fellowship in the History of Science and Technology from the Huntington Library. She has also been a Visiting Scholar and the co-organizer of a working group (2016-2019) at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin.

At LMU, she teaches broadly, with courses covering the history of health & disease and the history of science & nature in North America and Europe from the early modern period to the present. She also teaches courses on the U.S. Civil War era. In 2015, her Civil War seminar curated the exhibit, “Not Silent: Finding Voices in Civil War Artifacts,” at the LMU William H. Hannon Library, Archives and Special Collections.

Education

Cornell University

Ph.D., History, 2003

Cornell University

M.A., American History, 1999

University of California, Davis

B.A., History,1995

Areas of Expertise

History of Medicine and ScienceGender IssuesHistory of Women's Health Nineteenth-Century U.S. History

Accomplishments

Judith Lee Ridge Article Prize | professional

Western Association of Women Historians, 2006.

Affiliations

  • Working Group Co-Organizer, “Working with Paper: Gendered Practices in the History of Knowledge,” Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin (2016-1019)
  • American Association for the History of Medicine
  • History of Science Society

Research Grants

Dibner Research Fellowship in the History of Science and Technology

The Huntington Library

2020-2021

Women in Medicine Legacy Foundation Fellow

Countway Library of Medicine

2018-2019

Visiting Scholar

Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin

September-December 2016, and June 2-June 16, 2017

Summer Stipends

National Endowment for the Humanities

Summer 2014

Anna K. and Mary E. Cunningham Research Residency

New York State Library

2013

Bellarmine Research Award

Loyola Marymount University

2012-2013

Summer Research Grant

Loyola Marymount University

Summer 2010

Scholars Award

National Science Foundation

September 2007-August 2008

Research Fellowship

Gilder Lehrman Institute for American History

2007

The Bellarmine College Fellowship

Loyola Marymount University

Spring 2007

Mayers Fellowship and Helen Bing Fellowship

The Huntington Library

January-May 2006

Courses

Science, Nature & Society

Science, Nature & Society

The United States & the World

The United States & the World

Health and Disease in American Culture

Health and Disease in American Culture

Gender, Technology, and the Body

Gender, Technology, and the Body

History of Childhood and the Family

History of Childhood and the Family

The Civil War

The Civil War

Imagining Lincoln

Imagining Lincoln

Articles

Cranial Compatibility: Phrenology, Measurement, and Marriage Assessment

Part of the Isis Focus section, “It’s a Match!”

“Cranial Compatibility: Phrenology, Measurement, and Marriage Assessment” Isis 112, no. 4 (December 2021): 795-803.

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Introduction: Paper, Gender, and the History of Knowledge

Working with Paper: Gendered Practices in the History of Knowledge

Carla Bittel, Elaine Leong, and Christine von Oertzen

“Introduction: Paper, Gender and the History of Knowledge,” in Working with Paper: Gendered Practices in the History of Knowledge, eds. Carla Bittel, Elaine Leong, and Christine von Oertzen, 1-14. (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019).

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Unpacking the Phrenological Toolkit: Gender and Identity in Antebellum America

Working with Paper: Gendered Practices in the History of Knowledge

“Unpacking the Phrenological Toolkit: Gender and Identity in Antebellum America” in Working with Paper: Gendered Practices in the History of Knowledge, eds. Carla Bittel, Elaine Leong, and Christine von Oertzen (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019), 91-107.

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Testing the Truth of Phrenology: Knowledge Experiments in Antebellum American Cultures of Science and Health

Medical History

“Testing the Truth of Phrenology: Knowledge Experiments in Antebellum American Cultures of Science and Health” Medical History 63, no. 3 (2019): 352-374.

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Woman, Know Thyself: Producing and Using Phrenological Knowledge in Nineteenth-Century America

Beyond the Academy: Histories of Gender and Knowledge

“Woman, Know Thyself: Producing and Using Phrenological Knowledge in Nineteenth-Century America,” in Beyond the Academy: Histories of Gender and Knowledge, Christine von Oertzen, Maria Rentetzi, and Elizabeth Siegel Watkins, eds. Centaurus 55 (May 2013): 104-130.

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A Literary Physician? The Paris Writings of Mary Putnam Jacobi

Communicating Disease: Cultural Representations of American Medicine

“A Literary Physician? The Paris Writings of Mary Putnam Jacobi” in Communicating Disease: Cultural Representations of American Medicine Carmen Birkle and Johanna Heil, eds. (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2013).

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Mary Putnam Jacobi and the Nineteenth-Century Politics of Women’s Health Research

Women Physicians and the Cultures of Medicine

“Mary Putnam Jacobi and the Nineteenth-Century Politics of Women’s Health Research” in Women Physicians and the Cultures of Medicine Ellen More, Elizabeth Fee, and Manon Parry, eds. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, December 2008), 23-51.

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Science, Suffrage, and Experimentation: Mary Putnam Jacobi and the Controversy Over Vivisection in Late Nineteenth-Century America

Bulletin of the History of Medicine

“Science, Suffrage, and Experimentation: Mary Putnam Jacobi and the Controversy Over Vivisection in Late Nineteenth-Century America” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 79 (Winter 2005): 664-694.

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