Rate My Professor Michael Woods

Michael Woods is Professor of History and Director of the Papers of Andrew Jackson in the Department of History at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He earned his Ph.D. in History from the University of South Carolina in 2012, M.A. in History from the University of South Carolina in 2009, and B.A. in History and Economics, summa cum laude, from Whitman College in 2007. Woods previously held positions as Associate Professor of History at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville from 2020 to 2023, Associate Professor of History at Marshall University from 2017 to 2020, and Assistant Professor at Marshall University prior to that.

Woods's research focuses on nineteenth-century American political and cultural history, including the role of emotions in politics, sectional conflict, slavery, and the Civil War era. His key publications include Emotional and Sectional Conflict in the Antebellum United States (Cambridge University Press, 2014), which won the 2015 James A. Rawley Prize from the Southern Historical Association; Bleeding Kansas: Slavery, Sectionalism, and Civil War on the Missouri-Kansas Border (Routledge, 2016); and Arguing until Doomsday: Stephen Douglas, Jefferson Davis, and the Struggle for American Democracy (University of North Carolina Press, 2020). Recent articles feature "Building a Proslavery Lobby: The Domestic Politics of the Encomium Case" in the Journal of the Early Republic (2025), "Charleston, City of Mourners: Anticipations of Civil War in the Cradle of Secession" in Civil War History (2021), and "The Compromise of 1850 and the Search for a Usable Past" in the Journal of the Civil War Era (2019). As Director of the Papers of Andrew Jackson since 2020, he leads the editorial project with support from National Endowment for the Humanities grants, including one awarded in 2026. Woods has received the University of Tennessee Excellence in Advising Award and holds the Lindsay Young Professorship for 2025-2027. He contributes to public engagement through webinars, lectures, and service on the University of Tennessee Press editorial board.