Dan Kerr Associate Professor CAS | History

Additional Positions at AU: MA Director, Public History
Favorite Spot on Campus: The Humanities Truck driver seat
Bio: Daniel Kerr is the director of American University's Humanities Truck program and the associate director of its public history program. He is the president-elect of the Oral History Association.

Kerr specializes in the fields of community history, oral history, and public history. The projects he has initiated, including the Cleveland Homeless Oral History Project, the Shenandoah Valley Oral History Project, and the Homeless Voices Amplification Cooperative in Washington, DC, have gained inspiration from the traditions of popular education, participatory action research, and people’s history. With each project, Kerr seeks to honor the “shared authority” inherent in the oral histories and documents generated throughout the research process.

His book Derelict Paradise: Homelessness and Urban Development in Cleveland, Ohio offers answers to the question, "Who benefits from homelessness?" Through his work, Kerr seeks to explore the relationship between activism, social change, and history.

See Also: Engaged History; The Humanities Truck; Department of History
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