Rate My Professor Michael Topp

Michael Topp is an Associate Professor of History in the Department of History at the University of Texas at El Paso, where he also serves as Director of the Liberal Arts Honors Program in the College of Liberal Arts. He earned his PhD in History from Brown University in 1993, an MA in American Civilization from Brown University in 1986, and a BA in American Studies from Trinity College in 1983. Topp specializes in American immigration, ethnicity, and labor, with research interests encompassing racial and ethnic history, working-class history, and the history of social movements in the United States. His scholarship examines the Italian American Left, masculinity and nationalism, immigrant historiography, and their relevance to borderlands, racial, and ethnic identity. His next project focuses on the history of cultural identity and mental illness in the United States.

Topp authored the monographs Those Without a Country: The Political Culture of Italian American Syndicalists (University of Minnesota Press, 2001), supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities summer stipend in 1994, and The Sacco and Vanzetti Case: A Brief History with Documents (Bedford/St. Martin's Press, 2004). Recent publications include "Remembrance and Erasure in the Post-Holocaust United States" in Holocaust and Genocide Studies (2021) and "Mischlinge" in Cimarron Review 219/220 (2024). He has published numerous essays on these themes and contributes to ongoing discussions through book reviews in journals such as The American Historical Review and Journal of Interdisciplinary History. Topp has received the Chancellor’s Council Outstanding Teaching Award in 1999 and 2000, UTEP’s Research and Sponsored Programs Outstanding Performance Award in 2006, honorary membership in the Golden Key International Honour Society in 2002, Professor of the Month from UTEP’s Honors Council in 1996, the Apple for the Professor Award from Tufts University in 1991, and a Curricular Development Grant from Brown University in 1988. He currently teaches courses such as History of the U.S. Since 1865, Advanced Topics in Historiography, Problems in Historical Research, and Liberal Arts Honors Program Seminars, while supervising graduate theses and dissertations. Topp leads the grant-funded project "The Long Reach of the Holocaust" through UTEP’s College of Liberal Arts.