Dr. Benita Blessing is assistant professor of European women’s and gender history in the department of history. She teaches courses on European gender and cultural history, including modern Germany, modern France, Women Warriors, and Students and Revolution.

She graduated from Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas, with a B.A. in German and French. She also studied at Institut d'Etudes Européennes, Paris, France. She was awarded her M.A. in International Policy Studies and German from the Monterey Institute of International Studies, Monterey, California. Blessing received a joint Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in history and educational policy studies.

Blessing was a National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation fellow; visiting dissertator with Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany; and a visiting researcher with the European University Institute, Florence, Italy. She has taught previously at New York University – Florence. She is a member of the History of Education Society, American Historical Association, German Studies Association, and American Educational Research Association.

She has recently finished a manuscript, An Antifascist Education: School and Society in Soviet-occupied Germany, 1945-1949. Article publications and conference presentations include studies on girls’ and boys’ gender and socialization under the emerging East German regime and German cultural history. Her new project focuses on the history of children’s sleep rituals in nineteenth-century Europe.

In addition to her work at Ohio University, Blessing is summer dean of Lago del Bosco, an intensive Italian language and cultural immersion program of Concordia Language Villages for young people (Concordia College, Minnesota). She is fluent in Italian, German and French, and has reading knowledge of several other languages.

303 Bentley Annex
740-593-4358
blessing@ohio.edu