Laura Belmonte

Department of History and Office of the Dean
Liberal Arts and Human Sciences Building
200 Stanger Street
Blacksburg, VA 24061
540-231-6779 | belmonte@vt.edu

Laura A. Belmonte is Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences and Professor of History at Virginia Tech. She received her A.B. in History and Political Science from the University of Georgia and her M.A. and Ph.D. in History from the University of Virginia. Her books include "The International LGBT Rights Movement: A History" (Bloomsbury, 2020) and "Selling the American Way: U.S. Propaganda and the Cold War" (UPenn, 2008). She is also co-author of "Global Americans: A Transnational U.S. History" and editor of "Speaking of America: Readings in U.S. History." She is editor of the Bloomsbury series "History in 15" and co-editor of "Transnational LGBTQ+ Networks in Europe and the Americas" (Bloomsbury, forthcoming).

Before accepting the deanship at Virginia Tech in 2019, she taught at Oklahoma State University for 23 years. While at OSU, she co-founded the Gender and Women’s Studies and American Studies programs. Her administrative roles included Director of American Studies, Head of the Department of History, and Associate Dean for Personnel and Instruction for the College of Arts and Sciences. She has extensive non-profit board experience including co-founding and leading Freedom Oklahoma, a statewide LGBTQ advocacy organization. She served on the U.S. Department of State’s Advisory Committee on Historical Diplomatic Documentation from 2009 to 2019. In 2021-2022, she served as President of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR). Her SHAFR experience also includes terms on the SHAFR national council, the editorial board of Diplomatic History, the Nominating Committee, the Link-Kuehl Prize Committee, the Committee on the Status of Women, and other ad hoc committees.

Principal Areas of Research Focus

U.S. History
U.S. Foreign Relations

Education

Ph.D., University of Virginia, 1996
M.A., University of Virginia, 1991
A.B., University of Georgia, 1989

Professional Roles

Dean, Virginia Tech College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences
Professor, Department of History

Awards and Honors

Elizabeth Kolmer Award from the Mid-America American Studies Association, 2017
College of Arts and Sciences Finalist, Regents Distinguished Teaching Award, 2010
Friend of Non-Traditional Students Award, 2009
College of Arts and Sciences Finalist, Regents Distinguished Teaching Award, 2009
College of Arts and Sciences Finalist, Regents Distinguished Teaching Award, 2008
Nominee, Phoenix Graduate Teaching Award, 1999

Publications

Peer Reviewed Books

A History of the International LGBT Rights Movement. London: Bloomsbury, 2021

Selling the American Way: U.S. Propaganda and the Cold War. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008, Cloth. Paperback edition, 2010.

Textbooks

Series editor, History in 15, Bloomsbury (under contract).

Co-Author with Maria E. Montoya, Steve Hackel, Lon Kurashige, Carl Guarneri, and Ellen O’Connor, Global Americans: A History of the United States. Cengage, 2018. (2^nd edition forthcoming)

Editor, Speaking of America: Readings in U.S. History, 2 vols. Cengage (formerly Thomson-Wadsworth Learning Company), 1^st ed., 2003; 2^nd ed., 2006.

Peer Reviewed Articles and Book Chapters

“Can Human Rights Survive Technology?” Diplomatic History 47:1 (January 2023): 1-18.

“Contagion and Catastrophe: Reflections on the COVID-19 Pandemic.” in Forum: U.S. Foreign Relations Historians Writing Their Way out of COVID-19.” Diplomatic History 45:1 (June 2021): 451-459.

“‘Gay Rights are Human Rights’” – LGBTI Equality and U.S. Public Diplomacy.” in Routledge Handbook of Public Diplomacy. Nicholas Cull and Nancy Snow, eds. 2^nd ed. London: Routledge, 2020, pp. 438-444.

“The International LGBT Rights Movement: An Introductory History.” in Lora Wildenthal and Jean Quataert, eds. Routledge History of Human Rights. London: Routledge, in production.

“Propaganda in the History of U.S. Foreign Relations.” in Mark A. Lawrence, ed. Oxford

“Popular Culture and the Cold War.” In Matthew Masur, ed. Understanding and Teaching the Cold War. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2017, pp. 159–173.

Colloquy contributor, “Queering America and The World.” Diplomatic History 40 (Winter 2016).

“USIA Responds to the Women’s Movement” in David Snyder, Hallvard Notaker, and Giles Scott Smith, eds. Selling American in an Age of Uncertainty: U.S. Public Diplomacy in the New International Order, 1965-1980. New York, Bloomsbury, 2015, pp. 79-93.

“Promoting American Anti-Imperialism in the Early Cold War.” in Empire’s Twin: Varieties of Anti-Imperialism since 1776. Ian Tyrell and Jay Sexton, eds. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2015, pp. 187-202.

“Turning the Lens on Film and Foreign Relations.” Introduction to Forum on Connie Field’s Have You Heard from Johannesburg in Diplomatic History (November 2012): 785-87.

“Exporting America: The U.S. Propaganda Offensive, 1945-1959.” in The Arts of Democracy: Art, Civic Culture, and the State ed. Casey N. Blake. Woodrow Wilson Center Press and the University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007, pp. 12350.

“Selling Capitalism: Modernization and U.S. Overseas Propaganda, 1945–1959.” in Staging Growth: Modernization, Development, and the Globalization of the Cold War. eds, Michael Latham, Nils Gilman, Mark Haefele, and David Engerman, eds. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2003, pp. 107-28.

“A Family Affair? Gender, USIA, and Cold War Ideology, 1945-1960.” in Culture and International Relations. eds. Jessica Gienow-Hecht and Frank Schumacher. Oxford, UK: Berghahn Press, Ltd., 2003, pp. 79-93.

“No Substitute for Virility: Douglas MacArthur, Gender, and the Culture of Militarism.” in MacArthur and the American Century ed. William M. Leary. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001, pp. 436-65.

“Harvey Milk, San Francisco, and Gay Migration.” in The Human Tradition in the American West eds. Reagan Lutz and Benson Tong. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, Inc, 2001, pp. 209-25. Reprinted in The Human Tradition in America: 1865 to the Present ed. Charles Calhoun. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, Inc., 2003.

“Anglo-American Relations and the Dismissal of MacArthur.” Diplomatic History 19 (Fall 1995): 641-68.

Fellowships, Grants, and Sponsored Research

Oklahoma Humanities Council Grant, OSU College of Arts and Sciences Matching Grant, 2015 ($500/$2,500)
Departmental Summer Travel Award, 2014 ($7,500)
Departmental Summer Travel Award, 2013 ($2,500)
Departmental Summer Travel Award, 2012 ($3,000)
Oklahoma Humanities Council Grant, OSU College of Arts and Sciences Matching Grant, 2009 ($500/$2,500)
OSU College of Arts and Sciences FY09 Travel Grant, 2008 ($2,500)
OSU Department of History Summer Travel Grant, 2007 ($4,000)
OSU College of Arts and Sciences, ASR Travel Grant, 2007 ($2,500)
OSU Department of History Summer Travel Grant, 2006 ($2,500)
National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute, “Rethinking America in Global Perspective,” Library of Congress, Washington, DC, 2005 ($5,000)
Grants Reviewer, National Endowment for the Humanities, 2004
University Sabbatical, Oklahoma State University, 2002–03
Residential Fellowship, Center for the Humanities, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, 2002–03 ($30,000)
Oklahoma Humanities Council Grant, OSU College of Arts and Sciences Matching Grant, 1999 ($500/$2,500)
OSU College of Arts and Sciences Travel Grant, 1998 ($2,500)
Dean’s Incentive Grant, 1998 ($3,000)
OSU Innovative Teaching Grant, 1997 ($2,500)
OSU College of Arts and Sciences Summer Research Award, 1997 ($3,000)
Oklahoma Foundation for the Humanities Grant, OSU College of Arts and Sciences Matching Grant, 1997 ($500/$2,500)
Harry S. Truman Institute Travel Grant, 1997
Research Travel Fellowship, OSU Department of History, 1996–97
Dupont Fellowship, 1994–95
Dupont Fellowship, 1993–94
Academic Enhancement Fellowship, 1991–92
Academic Enhancement Fellowship, 1990–91
Summer Foreign Language Study Grant, 1991
Graduate Travel Grant from Harry S. Truman Institute, 1991
Department Liaison, Teaching Resource Center, 1991
Travel Grant, Douglas MacArthur Memorial Foundation, 1990