Education

M.A. History, University of Virginia, 2024
M.A. World History and Cultures with Distinction, King's College London, 2022
B.A. History with Honors, The University of Chicago, 2021

Biography

Charles (Charlie) Heffernan-Brown is a third-year PhD candidate in the History department. He is broadly interested in twentieth-century U.S. cultural history, with a specific interest in the cultures of U.S. imperialism and the cultural politics of social movements. His master's thesis, "Believe the Children: Re-Reading the Satanic Panic Through Michelle Remembers" explored the making of the Satanic Panic in the 1980s in suburban America through the now-debunked autobiography of Satanic ritual abuse, Michelle Remembers. Charlie's dissertation project, "Empire's New Grooves: Queer Military Leisure and the Vietnam War" brings together military history, histories of U.S. empire, legal history, and queer studies to explore the intersection of queer community formation and military leisure in San Diego, California during the Vietnam War, seeking to understand how the U.S. military's immense presence in San Diego constructed particularly unique queer subcultures and politics unseen in other major U.S. cities. He is currently curating a museum exhibit with Lambda Archives of San Diego on the city's queer military history.

Charlie is a proud San Diegan, and holds an M.A. from King's College London and a B.A. from the University of Chicago.

Courses Taught

WGS2100: Introduction to Gender and Sexuality Studies (Professor Lisa Speidel)

AMST2001: Introduction to American Studies (Professors Jack Hamilton and Fiona Ngô)

HIST2014: Fascism: A Global History (Professors Manuela Achilles and Kyrill Kunakhovich)

AAS1010: Introduction to African-American and African Studies I (Professor Nemata Blyden)