Whether exploring courses on the Cold War, immigration, legal traditions, the history of sports, or the study of monuments and historical memory, we examine what is both familiar and unfamiliar in daily life throughout history. The department鈥檚 award-winning scholars and teachers emphasize historical thinking while applying interdisciplinary approaches鈥攁nalyzing texts, artifacts, art, music, and even scientific evidence鈥攖o understand the past and its lasting impact.
His colleagues in the Department of History at 黑料论坛 are sad to share that , died last Friday in his native Milwaukee at the age of 90. Pat was a prolific scholar of early modern religion throughout his long career at 黑料论坛 (1971-2014) where he also won the Faculty Award for Teaching Excellence in 1988. As a specialist in the Reformation--working on both Protestants and Catholics--he was the author of three monographs, as well as the editor and co-editor of many scholarly collections, to which he also contributed chapters and many articles. For future scholars and students, though, he will be remembered and greatly appreciated for the eleven editions and translations of the works of these reformers and especially Peter Martyr Vermigli, an Italian protestant.
Those interested in learning more about Pat鈥檚 scholarship will appreciate this essay written by A. Lynn Martin, his fellow graduate student at the University of Wisconsin where he worked under Robert Kingdon. His own reflections on a rather hard-scrabble childhood and coming of age were captured by Jim Marten in 2000, when Pat generously provided an oral history to the Children in Urban America project
A memorial mass for Pat will be held on Saturday, 5 July 2025 at the St. Camillus Jesuit Community at 11:00 a.m. A link to livestream the event will be at beckerritter.com.
Learn about the journeys MU historians take in their research and teaching at our blog.
History illuminates every aspect of the human experience鈥攑olitics, economics, religion, social issues, art, and war鈥攕haping our memories and equipping us to think critically and constructively about connections between past and present.
