Areas of Interest/Research
I’m a cultural and literary historian who focuses on gender and popular cultures in the 20th-century United States. I was trained in the historical study of popular media forms, and in graduate school developed a side interest in the culture of addiction and recovery. I combined these two interests in my first book, The Language of the Heart: 12-Step Recovery from AA to Oprah Winfrey (University of North Carolina Press, 2009). That book examined both the “bibliotherapeutic” dimensions of Alcoholics Anonymous, whose foundational texts were written and read almost exclusively by white men, and the recovery literature written by women and minority authors connected to AA’s many offshoots. My anthology Re-Thinking Therapeutic Culture (University of Chicago Press, 2015, co-edited with my friend Tim Aubry) extended my work on popular self-help and other “mental hygiene” movements. Work on my current project– an examination of feminist responses to drug-using women entitled “Feminists on Drugs: A History”– paused for a few years (2021-2024) while I served as Associate Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. The book is now under contract with the University of Chicago Press and I will be working on it as a Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study during 2025-26.
You can see a complete list of my amazing accomplishments in my CV.
Background
PhD, Yale University, American Studies, 1998
MA, Bread Loaf School of English, 1995
BA, New York University, Gallatin Division, 1987
Contact Information (email is always the best way to contact me)
Office: 305 Ustler Hall Office Hours: on research leave, 2025-26
Email: ttravis@ufl.edu Phone: (352) 273-0393
Mailing: Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies
University of Florida, Box 117352
Gainesville, FL32611-7352