Rate My Professor Alyssa Goldstein

Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall is a Professor of History and Graduate Studies Coordinator in the Department of History at California State University, San Marcos, within the College of Humanities, Arts, Behavioral and Social Sciences. She joined the faculty in 1999 and was promoted to full professor in 2011. Sepinwall earned bachelor’s degrees in history and political science from the University of Pennsylvania, as well as M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in history from Stanford University. Her research specializations encompass Haitian and French history, slavery and colonization, the history of gender, visual and pop cultures including historical film and video games, race, universalism, the Atlantic World, and Jewish history.

Key publications include Slave Revolt on Screen: The Haitian Revolution in Film and Video Games (University Press of Mississippi, 2021), Haitian History: New Perspectives (Routledge, 2013), and The Abbé Grégoire and the French Revolution: The Making of Modern Universalism (University of California Press, 2005). Other significant works are “Still Unthinkable?: The Haitian Revolution and the Reception of Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s Silencing the Past” (Journal of Haitian Studies, 2013), “Robespierre, Old Regime Feminist? Gender, the Late Eighteenth Century, and the French Revolution Revisited” (Journal of Modern History, 2010), and “The Specter of Saint-Domingue: American and French Reactions to the Haitian Revolution” (2009). Internationally recognized for her scholarship, she has held offices in professional societies and is frequently quoted in national media.

Sepinwall has garnered major awards, including the 2023 Wang Family Excellence Award for Outstanding Faculty Teaching from the California State University system (one of five recipients across 23 campuses, with a $20,000 prize), the 2014-2015 Harry E. Brakebill Distinguished Professor Award (CSUSM’s highest faculty honor), and the 2004 CSUSM President’s Award for Innovation in Teaching. Her innovative teaching features hands-on projects such as cookoffs, gamified lessons on the French Revolution, field trips, and guest speakers like Holocaust survivors and refugees. She has organized over 30 special events on topics including DACA and genocides, delivered more than 50 community talks—including an interview with Elie Wiesel—provided over 30 colleague lectures, advised graduate theses, served on committees, and mentored students to graduate programs and careers, profoundly influencing her academic community.