Ari Forsyth (they/them)

Graduate Student
Headshot of Ari Forsyth, a white 23 year old with chin-length bright green hair. They are wearing a green button-up shirt and smiling slightly.

Contact Information

Biography

B.A., History, Rice University, 2021
M.A., History, University of Washington, 2022

I am a PhD student in History specializing in race, gender, and Jewish identity in the early twentieth-century United States. My training is in four fields of social and cultural history: United States history (1865-present), global Jewish history (1492-present), comparative race and colonialism, and Critical Disability & Science, Technology, and Society (STS) studies. 

My teaching and research interests include early 20th-century social science, social work, & urban policing, histories of Progressivism/liberalism, US settler colonialism, US overseas imperialism, global Jewish migration (1492-present), Jewish-American ethnic identity, cultural Zionism, women's history, and critical studies of race, gender, sexuality, and disability. 

My dissertation investigates Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jewish-American women’s experiences as reformers, social workers, and criminalized subjects in early twentieth-century US cities like New York and Seattle to understand connections between disability, gender normativity, and whiteness.

When I'm not working, I love watching Star Trek, making zines and linocuts, two-stepping to fast drums, reading spec fic, and riding public transportation. I believe that historical research is not only a life-saving and politically essential tool for understanding systems of power that shape our lives but also, frankly, an incredibly fun way to spend a Saturday night. I serve UW students and local community members and welcome requests for insight, support, or advocacy. 


Professional Appointments:

  • 2022 - 2024 | Teaching Assistant, UW History Department
  • 2023 - 2024 | Editorial and Communications Intern, Center for the Study of the Pacific Northwest (CSPN) and Pacific Northwest Quarterly (PNQ) 
  • 2024 - Present | Graduate Research Assistant, Lakeland Village Preservation Project, UW Disability Studies Program & WA State Legislature (Funded by SB 6125)

Awards

2024 Thomas M. Power Prize Honorable Mention for the outstanding graduate essay written in the Department of History, “Problem Students of Early Social Work: Race, Disability, and Discipline at the New York School of Social Work, 1915-1920”
Digital History Summer Fellowship, 2023, "Mapping the Jewish Settlement House Movement"
2022 Thomas M. Power Prize Honorable Mention for the outstanding graduate essay written in the Department of History, “Jewish Mothers / Racial Others: Sephardic Women and Girls in Seattle’s Progressive Jewish Settlement House."
Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship, Rice University, 2019

Courses Taught

Affiliations

Home Department
Professional Affiliations
Social Science History Association (SSHA), Jewish Studies Association (JSA)
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