Dr. Alison Meek

Associate Professor

Phone: 4397
Email: ameek@uwo.ca

Dr. Alison Meek is an Associate Professor in History at King’s University College, at the University of Western Ontario. After having initially focused on a career as a professional dancer, including enrolling in professional dance and musical theater programs in Banff, Alberta and London, England, Dr. Meek switched career paths and enrolled in the University of Toronto/Erindale. After completing her PhD in American history at the University of Toronto, she accepted a teaching position in the history department at King’s University College in July 2001.

Education

• PhD in History, University of Toronto, 2001
• MA in History, University of Toronto, 1992
• Honors BA in History, University of Toronto/Erindale, 1991
• Arts Education, School of Performing Arts, London, England, 1986
• Banff Center of Performing Arts, Banff, Alberta, 1985

Teaching

Current

• HIS2133 Cults, Terrorism and Extremism in American History
• HIS2301 The History of the United States
• HIS3308 Conspiracy Theories in American History

Previous

• HIS 4392E Terrorism USA
• HIS 4306E Cold War America
• HIS 3307E American Popular Culture
• HIS 3319E American Foreign Relations Since 1775
• HIS 4301E 20th Century America
• HIS 461E Canada and the United States
• HIS 496E Selected Topics: Advanced Research in Cold War US-Israeli Relations
• HIS 294Y America, Britain and Canada: The ABC’s of Transatlantic Relations (taught at the University of Sussex, England)
• HIS 378H America in the 1960s (taught at the University of Toronto)
• HIS 447H Advanced Readings in American Popular Culture (taught at the University of Toronto)

Research

• Conspiracy Theories
• Terrorism and extremism
• Cults
• Escaping extremist religions and groups

Selected Publications

ON-GOING RESEARCH INTERESTS AND PUBLICATION FOCUS

• 'Another reason to plan your family vacation someplace else': Cocaine Cowboys, Dead Tourists and Miami’s Image Woes, 1979-1995
• The Cadillac, The Kiwanis Club, and Harvey Jones
• McCarthyism and the Editorial Cartoons of Herblock and The Chicago Tribune and
•  Breaking News: Comparing the TV News Coverage of Kennedy's Assassination, Vietnam, and the 9/11 Attacks"

SELECTED CONFERENCE PAPERS

• Murders and Pastels in Miami: The role of Miami Vice in Bringing Tourists Back to Miami
• Bomb Canada/Soviet Canuckistan: How the Conservative Media in the US Views Canada
• Breaking News: A Comparison of TV News Coverage of Kennedy's Assassination and the 9/11 Attacks
• The Media at War: From Vietnam to the War on Terror
• September 11th -- The Aftermath
• The Poisonous Pens: Editorial Cartoons and the Post World War II Anti Communist Hysteria
• 'Everyone is Against Joe McCarthy Except 150 Million Americans'
• The United States, the EEC, and the EFTA
• Working to Avoid a Breakdown: The United States, Britain and the Six, 1956-1959
• Kibitzers to Participants: Explaining America's European Integration Policy 1955-1960