Brent M. S. Campney
Dr. Campney earned his PhD from Emory University and holds degrees from the University of
Michigan and the University of Kansas. He is the author of This Is Not Dixie: Racist Violence in
Kansas, 1861-1927 (University of Illinois Press, 2015). He has published articles in American
Nineteenth Century History, Western Historical Quarterly, Great Plains Quarterly, Middle West Review,
and Georgia Historical Quarterly, among others journals, and has contributed chapters to Bleeding
Kansas, Bleeding Missouri: The Long Civil War on the Border (University Press of Kansas, 2013) and
Lynching Beyond Dixie: American Mob Violence outside the South (University of Illinois Press, 2013).
He is currently at work on several research projects, including an investigation of race relations in
South Texas in the twentieth century.
In his teaching, Campney focuses on the history of race and ethnicity in nineteenth and twentieth
century America. He is particularly interested in mob and racial violence, the ‘long’ civil rights
struggle, armed black resistance, war and racial propaganda, and the rise of scientific racism.
Geographically, he concentrates on the American West, Midwest, and South. In his classes he often
explores these themes and issues through the examination of material culture, using such tangible
artifacts as post-cards, children’s books, advertisements, photographs, movie clips, and music.