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Dean Rapp
Professor

On faculty since 1970

 Office: Blanchard 207
Phone: (630) 752-5862
Fax: (630) 752-5294

Dean.R.Rapp@wheaton.edu
Education

Ph.D. British History, 1760-1914, The Johns Hopkins University, 1971
M.A. Modern European History, University of Pennsylvania, 1969
M.A. British History, 1760-1914, The Johns Hopkins University, 1969
B.A. History, Wheaton College, cum laude, 1964
 
Professional and Personal Interests

Dr. Rapp's greatest teaching interest is in social and cultural history, both of Britain and Europe from about 1789 through 1945.

Outside the classroom and research, he enjoys reading British mystery novels (Ruth Rendell, P.D. James and Ian Rankin are among his favorites). He lives in Chicago and enjoys the many activities of urban life -- walking along the lake, attending plays and symphony concerts, eating out at restaurants, and visiting new attractions that come to the city. Dr. Rapp's favorite activity, however, is overseas travel. He has been to Europe many times (especially London), as well as several times to Asia and Africa. Other than London, his favorite cities are Paris, Berlin, Vienna and Istanbul.

Courses Taught
  • World Civilization
  • Revolutionary Europe, 1789-1870
  • Origins of Contemporary Europe, 1870-1945
  • Britain Since 1832
  • Christianity and Historical Study (the senior seminar).
  • Also special seminars, such as: British History to 1688, Early Modern Europe, England and France in the 18th Century, Victorian Culture and Society, Impacts and Images of the French Revolution, 1789-1989.

Membership in Professional Societies
  • American Historical Association
  • The Conference on Faith and History
  • The International Association for Audio-Visual Media in Historical Research and Education
  • The Midwest Victorian Studies Association
  • The North American Conference on British Studies
  • The Popular Culture Association

Research
His current research interest is British churches and film, 1896-1939. There are a number of specific themes within this topic, some of which he has already published in scholarly articles. Those on which he is now working are British mission films, and Methodists and film in the 1930s.

Papers Published and/or Presented

  • Rapp, Dean. Samuel Whitbread (1764-1815): A Social and Political Study. New York: Garland, 1987.
  • Rapp, Dean. "A Baptist Pioneer: The exhibition of film to London's East End working classes, 1900-1918." Baptist Quarterly: the journal of the Baptist Historical Society 40:1 (2003): 6-21.
  • Rapp, Dean. "Sex in the Cinema: War, Moral Panic, and the British Film Industry, 1906-1918." Albion: a quarterly journal concerned with British studies 34:3 (2002): 422-451.
  • Rapp, Dean. "The British Salvation Army, the Early Film Industry and Urban Working-Class Adolescents, 1897-1918." 20th Century British History 7:2 (1996): 157-188.
  • Rapp, Dean. "The Jewish Response to G.K. Chesterton's Anti-semitism, 1911-33." Patterns of Prejudice 24:2-4 (1990): 75-68.
  • Rapp, Dean. "The Reception of Freudianism by British Methodists during the 'Psychoanalytic Craze' of the 1920s." Fides et Historia 25:2 (1993): 23-46.
  • Rapp, Dean. "The Early Discovery of Freud by the British General Educated Public, 1912-1919." Social History of Medicine 3:2 (1990): 217-243.
  • Rapp, Dean and Chuck Weber. "British Film, Empire and Society in the Twenties: The Livingstone Film, 1923-1925." Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 9:1 (1989): 3-17.
  • Rapp, Dean. "G.K. Chesterton's Criticism of Psychoanalysis." Chesterton Review 15:3 (1989): 341-353.
  • Rapp, Dean. "The Reception of Freud by the British Press: General Interest and Literary Magazine, 1920-1925." Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences24, no. 2, no. 24 (1988): 191-201.
  • Rapp, Dean. "The Left-Wing Whigs: Whitbread, the Mountain, and Reform, 1808-1815." Journal of British Studies 21 (1982): 35-66.
  • Rapp, Dean. "Social Mobility in the Eighteenth Century: The Whitbreads of Bedfordshire, 1720-1815." Economic History Review 27 (1974): 380-394.