Claire Arcenas, Associate Professor of History, University of Montana
Biography
Claire Arcenas is an American historian and an award-winning author and teacher. She specializes in the history of American thought across the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. Her first book, America's Philosopher: John Locke in American Intellectual Life (University of Chicago Press, 2022), explored the influence of the seventeenth-century English philosopher John Locke on American thought and culture over the last three hundred years. It received the 2022 István Hont Book Prize. She is currently writing a book about the Declaration of Independence, American Democracy, and Civic Education in the United States, 1776-2026.
Professor Arcenas is the recipient of numerous research fellowships and grants, including individual awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities (2019-2020) and the National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation (2018-2019). In 2023, she was honored to receive the Helen and Winston Cox Educational Excellence Award in recognition of her commitment to teaching and mentoring students at the University of Montana (UM).