Kenneth J. Bindas

Dr. Kenneth J. Bindas is Professor of History at Kent State University. He received his B.S. in Ed from Youngstown State University in 1983 and his M.A. and PhD in history from the University of Toledo in 1984 and 1988 respectively. He has taught at Kent State University since 1995 and served as department chair from 2008-2016.

He specializes in modern American Cultural and Intellectual history and has written widely on the intersection of politics, culture, and class during the Depression era. His books include Modernity and the Great Depression: The Transformation of American Society, 1930-1941 (forthcoming, University Press of Kansas, 2017); The Civilian Conservation Corps and the Construction of the Virginia Kendall Reserve, 1933-1939 (co-written with students, Kent State University Press, 2013); Remembering the Great Depression in the Rural South (University Press of Florida, 2007); Swing, That Modern Sound: The Cultural Context of Swing Music in America, 1935 – 1947 (University Press of Mississippi, 2001); and All of This Music Belongs to the Nation: The WPA's Federal Music Project and American Society, 1935 – 1939 (University of Tennessee Press, 1996). He also worked as producer for the play and local PBS broadcast documentary May 4th Voices (2013), for which he was awarded with director David Hassler the Oral History Association Non-Print Award in 2014, as well as producer, writer, and assistant director for a PBS documentary entitled Invisible Struggles: Stories of Northern Segregation (2007). Bindas has also edited The Great Depression and the New Deal: A Thematic Encyclopedia: Arts and Culture Volumes I & II, (ABC-CLIO, 2010) and America's Musical Pulse: Popular Music in Twentieth Century America, (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1992). He has published numerous book chapters, articles, essays and reviews in a wide variety of scholarly journals. Kent State University recognized his research excellence in 2012, awarding him the Outstanding Research and Scholar Award. He has been recognized for his innovative teaching at KSU with the Diversity Leadership Award and the Arts & Sciences Distinguished Teacher Award.