Brown Professor of History
- B.A. (1972) Haverford College
- B.Phil. (1974) Oxford University
- D.Phil. (1981) Oxford University
- William.G.Wagner@williams.edu
- Dean of the Faculty
- 413.597.4351
- Office Hours
- Contact the Dean of the Faculty's Office
- Courses
- HIST 140T: Fin-de-Siecle Russia: Cultural Splendor, Imperial Decay course page
- HIST 240: Muscovy and the Russian Empire course page
- HIST 241: The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union course page
- HIST 440: Reform, Revolution, Terror: Russia, 1900-1939 course page
- HIST 441: Gorbachev and the Collapse of Soviet Communism course page
- Web Pages
- Research in Russian and Soviet History
- Web Resources in Russian and Soviet History
- Research
- Women, religion, and orthodox monasticism in Imperial and early Soviet Russia, 1800-1935;
- Anthology of Primary Sources on Women in Imperial Russia.
- Thesis Students
- Jerry Useem '93 Collective Security in Inter-War Belgium
- Michelle Moon '94 Ethnic Tensions and Relations in Yugoslavia
- Charles Mahoney '01, Spanish Foreign Policy During World War II
- Anthony Salerno '01, “The Great Game” and British Empire
- David Rosenblum '03, Italian Policy and Civil Society during the Second Empire
- Selected Publications
- Books:
- Russian Women, 1698-1917: Experience and Expression. An Anthology of Sources (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002), compiled by R. Bisha, J. Gheith, C. Holden, and W. Wagner
- Marriage, Property, and Law in Late Imperial Russia(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994).
- Nikolai Chernyshevsky, What is to Be Done?trans. by M. Katz, annotated by W.G. Wagner (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989).
- Articles and Essays:
- “'Orthodox Domesticity': Creating a Social Role for Women in Late Imperial Russia,” in M. Steinberg and H. Coleman, eds., Sacred Stories: Religion and Spirituality in Modern Russian Culture (Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN, 2007), pp. 119-145
- “The Transformation of Female Orthodox Monasticism in Nizhnii Novgorod Diocese, 1764-1929, in Comparative Perspective,” The Journal of Modern History, LXXVIII:4 (2006), 793-845
- “Paradoxes of Piety: The Nizhegorod Convent of the Exaltation of the Cross, 1807-1928,” in V.A. Kivelson and R.H. Greene, eds., Orthodox Russia. Belief and Practice under the Tsars (Pennsylavania State University Press, 2003), pp. 211-38.
- “Civil Law, Individual Rights, and Judicial Activism in Late Imperial Russia,” in P.H. Solomon Jr., Reforming Justice in Russia, 1864-1994: Power, Culture and the Limits of Legal Order(Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1997), pp. 21-44.
- “Family Law, the Rule of Law, and Liberalism in Late Imperial Russia,”Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas XLII:4 (1995), pp. 519-35.
- “Women and the History Curriculum,” with C. Holden, AAASS Newsletter XXXI:2 (1991), pp. 3-4.
- “Ideology, Identity, and the Emergence of the Middle Class,” in E.W. Clowes, J.L. West, and S.D. Kassow eds., The Search for Civil Consciousness in Late Imperial Russia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991), pp. 149-63.
- “The Trojan Mare: Women's Rights and Civil Rights in Prerevolutionary Russia,” in O. Crisp and L. Edmondson, eds., Civil Rights in Prerevolutionary Russia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 65-84.
- “Chernyshevsky, What is To Be Done?, and the Russian Intelligentsia,” with M.Katz, introduction to N. Chernyshevsky, What is To Be Done? (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989), pp. 1-36.