Kutulas Judy Kutulas

I was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, experiencing a classic California upbringing of summer sailing and winter skiing (no surfing, though).  I quickly morphed from Girl Scout to wannabe hippie rebel; I saw the Grateful Dead play live before I entered high school. 

I earned my bachelor’s degree at the University of California at Berkeley.  Like so many Berkeley students, I was constantly inspired by both the college’s academic reputation and radical tradition.  I ran through five majors before settling on History, excellent preparation for Amcon’s interdisciplinary approach.   Thereafter, I defected to Southern California and UCLA for my graduate work, learning to love the beach (still no surfing), the proximity to the movie community, and twentieth-century US History.  I also met my spouse at UCLA.  As is apropos to Southern California, he proposed in a parking lot.

We moved to Northfield in 1986 and, ever since, I have been slowly expanding into the college’s many interdisciplinary programs, including Women’s Studies, American Studies, and Film Studies, although I do still teach in the History Department.  Having never attended a liberal arts college with so many opportunities to reinvent yourself, I’m like a kid in a candy shop, constantly trying new things.   I’m at work on my third book, having already published The Long War: The Intellectual people’s Front and Anti-Stalinism, 1930-1940 and The American Civil Liberties Union and the Transformation of American Liberalism.  The new one’s about the popular culture of the 1970s and the ways it helped mainstream radical sixties ideals. 

One of the most amazing things about Olaf is the opportunity to bring my own work into the classroom, to show students what I do and how I do it.  As I write this, I have twenty students writing on the 1970s, everything from busing to The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
I’m still married to Michael Fitzgerald, who also teaches US History here and we have two young adult sons, neither of whom is remotely interested in US History.  When not teaching, I can be found out running, at the Northfield Arts Guild’s ceramics studio, or volunteering at the Northfield Food Shelf.

I was one of Amcon’s founders and tend to teach in the third and fourth semesters.   I was the lead teacher for the 2006-08 cohort.  It was one of my favorite teaching experiences ever.