Basic Facts

Teaching Position: Assistant Professor of History, University of Virginia, 2007- present 
Area of Research: American political, cultural, and intellectual history 
Education: Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley, History, 2005 
Major Publications: Burns is the author of Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right (Oxford University Press 2009), an intellectual biography of the controversial novelist and philosopher. Based on exclusive access to Rand's personal papers, Goddess of the Market is the only book to draw upon Rand's unedited letters and journals. Burns is also the author of numerous scholarly journal articles, book chapters and reviews including among others: "O Libertarian, Where is Thy Sting?" Journal of Policy History, Vol. 19, No. 4, 2007: 453-471; "Liberalism and The Conservative Imagination," in Liberalism for a New Century, Eds. Neil Jumonville and Kevin Mattson (University of California Press, 2007); "In Retrospect: George Nash's The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945,"  Reviews in American History, 32 (September 2004): 447-462; "Godless Capitalism: Ayn Rand and the Conservative Movement," Modern Intellectual History, 1, 3 (November 2004): 1-27. Reprinted in American Capitalism: Social Thought and Political Economy in Twentieth Century America, ed. Nelson Lichtenstein (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006). 
Awards: Burns is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships including among others:
Organization of American Historians Distinguished Lecturer, 2010-2013; 
University of Virginia Sesquicentennial Fellowship, 2010-2011; 
University of Virginia Bankard Fund for Political Economy, 2010-2011, 2009; 
University of Virginia Summer Research Grant, 2009; 
University of Virginia Excellence in Diversity Fellow, 2008-2009; 
University of Virginia Professors as Writers Fellow, 2008-2009; 
Campbell National Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, 2007-2008; 
National Endowment for the Humanities, Summer Stipend, 2007; 
James H. Kettner Graduate Prize for best dissertation, 2006, Berkeley History Department; 
Library Prize for Undergraduate Research, UC Berkeley. Mentor of prizewinners, 2006 and 2003; 
Research Fellow, Herbert Hoover Presidential Library, 2006; 
Grantee, F.A. Hayek Fund for Scholars, Institute for Humane Studies, 2006, 2007; 
University of California, Berkeley, History Department Block Grant Fellowship, 2004, 2000; 
University of California, Berkeley, Dean's Competitive Fellowship, 2002; 
Derek Bok Certificate of Distinction for excellence in teaching, Harvard University, 2000; 

Additional Info: 
Burns has appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, C-Span’s Book TV, NPR's Weekend America, and Here & Now. She has also contributed articles to Harvard Magazine, Foreign Policy, the Christian Science Monitor, and several academic journals.
Burns has been a guest lecturer at Harvard, Columbia Business School, UC Berkeley, UC Santa Barbara, Rice University, and the Cato Institute.
Jennifer Burns personal website www.jenniferburns.org

Personal Anecdote

In 2006 I was starting my first job as a lecturer at UC Berkeley when the technology office phoned up and asked if I would like to podcast my course "Introduction to United States History Since 1865." I didn't even have an iPod, but I said "yes" without thinking much about it, thus launching the most unexpected and rewarding aspect of my career as a historian. Six months later, my lectures were up on iTunes and had been downloaded nearly 300,000 times. My inbox was bursting with emails from enthusiastic history students around the world. Accustomed to the private sanctuary of my books and my study, I panicked. It felt as though I had lost some cherished measure of privacy, and I wanted the lectures taken down immediately.

But then I paused and began to reflect on my goals and values as a historian. I had spent years of advanced study gathering knowledge - was this now to be shared only with specialists in my field? I had always believed historians should seek a broader audience, and now I was living that vision. As a Ph.D. student I had benefited from the intellectual vitality and openness of a public university, and my lectures were one small way to further the Berkeley legacy. 

Instead of taking the lectures down, I decided to create a website for podcasters and began corresponding regularly with my listeners. Since then, the sense of speaking to a larger audience has shaped and strengthened all of my scholarship. Podcasting helped me craft my first book, Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right, so that it appealed to both academics and general readers. Engaging with the public has deepened my commitment to educational equity and convinced me that there need not be a firewall between professional and popular history. I have learned that even from the ivory tower, our profession can still foster and connect with the ongoing human search for meaning, story, and a shared past. Though I may be an accidental podcaster, I have become and hope to remain a deliberate historian.

Quotes

By Jennifer Burns

Writing my first book, Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right, was like being a detective at the heart of an intellectual mystery story. Though Rand's legend was well established among both her fans and enemies, there was little scholarly work about her life and career. I was the first historian to work in her personal papers, and thus it was essential to document her life with archival evidence. Then came the challenge of fitting Rand into the evolving ideological landscape of the American right, which historians were just beginning to chart. The final step was crafting an analytic narrative that would demystify Rand yet retain the tension and sense of discovery that animated my years of detective work. -- Jennifer Burns about "Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right"

About Jennifer Burns