Announcing Incoming ASECS Executive Director Benita Blessing

The ASECS Executive Board is happy to announce that Dr. Benita Blessing will become the next full-time Executive Director of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, effective June 6, 2022. Dr. Blessing comes to ASECS from the German Studies Association, where she currently serves as Operations Director. In that capacity, Dr. Blessing has successfully organized the GSA’s annual meetings, and she is uniquely poised to manage our Society’s office, finances, and administration, while also playing an important role in strategic planning to make ASECS more inclusive and vibrant in the years to come. In addition, Dr. Blessing is an accomplished scholar. She received her Ph.D. in history and educational policy studies from the University of Wisconsin and has most recently served on the faculty of the World Languages and Cultures department at Oregon State University. Her well-received first book, The Antifascist Classroom: Re-education in Soviet-occupied Germany, 1945-1949 was published by Palgrave, and her forthcoming second book is entitled Teaching Socialism at the Cinema: East German Children’s Films, 1946-1992. Mark Boonshoft will continue as Executive Director until Dr. Blessing begins her term. We wish him well as he takes up an endowed professorship in American constitutional history beginning this fall. Sincerely, Rebecca Messbarger President, American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies