Faculty and Staff
John Sbardellati
Associate Professor of 20th-century US History & Director of Undergraduate Studies
Email:jsbardel@central.uh.edu
Office: 541 Agnes Arnold Hall
John Sbardellati received his BA from the University of California, Riverside, and his MA and PhD from the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research interests include twentieth century U.S. political, cultural, and diplomatic history. His book, J. Edgar Hoover Goes to the Movies: The FBI and the Origins of Hollywood’s Cold War, was published by Cornell University Press in 2012. It analyzes the FBI’s probe of the motion picture industry and its efforts to rein in the production of what it considered politically-suspect movies. His current research continues to focus on American political culture in the early Cold War, with a new emphasis on connections between race and national security politics.
Teaching
Dr. Sbardellati teaches courses in 20th century U.S. political, cultural, and diplomatic history. In addition to the U.S. survey, his course offerings include American History Through Film, America & the World: U.S. Foreign Relations since 1898, and a variety of upper level undergraduate and graduate seminars in modern U.S. history.Selected Publications
Book
- J. Edgar Hoover Goes to the Movies: The FBI and the Origins of Hollywood’s Cold War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012).
Articles & Chapters
- "Reagan’s Early Years: From Dixon to Hollywood" in A Companion to Ronald Reagan (Blackwell Companions to American History), edited by Andrew Johns (Wiley-Blackwell, 2015).
- “The ‘Maltz Affair’ Revisited: How the American Communist Party Relinquished its Cultural Influence at the Dawn of the Cold War,” Cold War History Vol. 9, No. 4 (2009): pages 489-500.
- “Brassbound G-Men and Celluloid Reds: The FBI’s Search for Communist Propaganda in Wartime Hollywood,”Film History Vol. 20, No. 4 (2008): pages 412-436.
- “The Emergence of McCarthyism,” in History in Dispute, Volume 19: The Red Scare after 1945, edited by Robbie Lieberman (St. James Press, 2004).
- “Booting a Tramp: Charlie Chaplin, the FBI, and the Construction of the Subversive Image in Red Scare America” (with Tony Shaw) Pacific Historical Review Vol. 72, No. 4 (2003): pages 495-530.