Julie K. deGraffenried

Areas of Specialization

Modern Russia/Soviet Union; Childhood & Children’s History; War; Visual Culture; Religion

Education

Ph.D., The University of Texas at Austin
M.A., The University of Texas at Austin
B.A., Baylor University

Academic Interests & Research Narrative

My research and teaching interests focus on the intersection of twentieth-century Russian history and the history of childhood. A doctoral student during the “archival turn,” my first book explored changing conceptions of childhood during the Great Patriotic War (World War II) in the Soviet Union through the lens of children’s culture and institutions. Further work has examined children’s war work, specific themes in children’s media, and images of children in wartime. More recently, with the arrival of the Keston Archive at Baylor, I have explored religion in the post-war era, with work on visual culture, childhood, and the archive itself.

I am also deeply interested in the scholarship of teaching and learning, proud to have played a role in the pedagogical training of our graduate students, and happy to have co-authored a primary source reader specifically for our core course (HIS 1300) with Dr. Stephen Sloan.

Selected Publications

Books

 Sacrificing Childhood: Children and the Soviet State in the Great Patriotic War, Modern War Series, Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, November 2014, 264 pp. ISBN 978-0700620029 - winner of the 2015 Guittard Book Award for Historical Scholarship

Voices of the Voiceless: Religion, Communism, and the Keston Archive, eds. Julie deGraffenried & Zoe Knox, Baylor University Press, July 2019, 116 pp. ISBN 978-1481311236   

The United States in Global Perspective: A Primary Source Reader, eds. Julie deGraffenried and Stephen Sloan, Baylor University Press, July 2020, 660 pp. ISBN 9781481312653

Freedom of Conscience in (Post)Soviet Space: Legacies of Michael Bourdeaux and the Keston Archive, eds. Julie deGraffenried, Michael Long, Xenia Dennen. Cornell University Press, forthcoming in 2025

Articles & Essays

“A New Normal: Death and Dying in a Soviet Children’s Magazine, 1941-1945,” (pp.115-229) in Global Perspectives on Death in Children’s Literature, eds. Lesley Clement and Leyli Jamali, Children’s Literature and Culture Series, Routledge, 2015 – available as a stand-alone electronic chapter from Routledge

“Combating God and Grandma: The Soviet Anti-Religious Campaigns and the Battle for Childhood,” (pp. 32-50) in The Dangerous God: Christianity and the Soviet Experiment, ed. Dominic Erdozain, Northern Illinois University Press, 2017

“Мобилизуя юность: труд советских детей в военное время,” Советский тыл 1941-1945: повседневная жизнь в годы войны, ред. Беате Физелер и Роджер Д. Марквик РОССПЕН, 2019

• Mobilizing the Young: War Work for Soviet Children” (pp. 126-146) in The Soviet Home Front 1941-1945: Everyday Life in Wartime, eds. Beate Fieseler and Roger Markwick, ROSSPEN, 2019

“Learning More Than Letters: Alphabet Books in the Soviet Union and United States in World War II,” in War and Childhood in the Age of World Wars, eds. James Marten and Mischa Honeck, Cambridge University Press, 2019

“Religion and Politics in the USSR: The Cold War Era,” (pp. 91-123) in The Palgrave Handbook of Religion and State, Vol. II: Global Perspectives, ed. Shannon Holzer, Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2023

“The Family in Soviet Children's Media, 1941-1945,"(pp. 227-248) in Familie und Krieg. Erfahrung, Fürsorge und Leitbilder von der Antike bis in die Gegenwart [Family and War: Experience, Welfare, and Ideas from Antiquity to Present Time], eds. Markus Raasch, Kathrin Kiefer, Alexander Denzler, and Andreas Hartmann, der Reihe "Krieg und Konflikt,” Frankfurt/New York: Campus-Verlag, 2023

Selected Activities 

Awards

• Blavatnik Archive Fellow, 2024
• Fundamentals of Data Research Fellow, Baylor Libraries, 2024
• Baylor Centennial Professor, 2023
• Elizabeth Vardaman Award for Excellence in Mentoring Undergraduates, 2023
• URC Research Leave Award, Provost’s Office, 2018
• Baylor University Outstanding Award for Teaching, Tenured Professors, 2016
• Guittard Book Award for Historical Scholarship, 2015
• Advisor, F. Ray Wilson II Award for Best Thesis in Honors Program, 2014 (Christina Walther, thesis)

Regular Course Offerings

• Undergraduate:
  • HIS 1300 | US in Global Perspectives - Babes, Boomers, & Bright Young Things
  • HIS 3320 | History of Childhood
  • HIS 3342 | Russia Since 1861
  • HIS 4379 | The Cold War
• Graduate:
  • HIS 5393 | Teaching the College Survey
  • HIS 5393 | Global History of Childhood
  • HIS 5393 | The Cold War

Other Courses Taught

• Undergraduate:
  • HIS 1307 | World History since 1500
  • HIS 3340 | Russia to 1861

Work with Students

• Accepting a limited number of grad students; work extensively with grad students on supporting fields
• Willing to direct undergraduate research

Graduate Student:
Patrick Leech (co-advise with Stephen Sloan)

Undergraduate Students:
Anna Pinchen