Kim E. Nielsen

Nielsen grew up largely in Northern Minnesota. She earned a BA from Macalester College in 1988, and from the University of Iowa an MA in 1991 and a PhD in 1996. At Macalester she was mentored by Peter Rachleff, and her thesis advisor at Iowa was Linda Kerber.{{cite web |title=Q&A with Kim E. Nielsen, author of Marriage, Money, and Madness |url=https://www.press.uillinois.edu/wordpress/qa-with-kim-e-nielson-author-of-marriage-money-and-madness |website=University of Illinois Press |date=2020-05-26}}

For fourteen years, until 2012, she was a professor of Democracy and Justice Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Green Bay.{{Cite web |title='After Thoughts' series returns Sept. 20 with Nielsen talk |url=https://news.uwgb.edu/phlash/announcements/09/07/after-thoughts-series-returns/ |access-date=2022-04-04 |website=Inside UW-Green Bay News |language=en-US}} Nielsen has written biographies of Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan Macy,{{Cite news |last=Godin |first=M. Leona |date=2021-10-21 |title=Helen Keller and the Problem of 'Inspiration Porn' |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/21/opinion/helen-keller.html |access-date=2022-04-04 |issn=0362-4331}} and participated as an on-screen expert in the American Masters episode, "Becoming Helen Keller" (2021).{{Cite web |date=2021-08-30 |title=Becoming Helen Keller |url=https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/helen-keller-documentary/18386/ |access-date=2022-04-04 |website=American Masters, PBS |language=en-US}}

She was the founding president of the Disability History Association,{{Cite web |date=2015-07-28 |title=About Kim E. Nielsen |url=https://revisioningamericanhistory.com/authors/kim-nielsen/ |access-date=2022-03-27 |website=ReVisioning History |language=en}} and her book A Disability History of the United States (2012) was described as "the first broad survey of its topic and the first work to lay out a complete periodization of American disability history".{{Cite journal |last=Brune |first=Jeffrey |date=2013-03-24 |title=Review of Nielsen, A Disability History of the United States |url=https://dsq-sds.org/article/view/3719 |journal=Disability Studies Quarterly |language=en |volume=33 |issue=2 |doi=10.18061/dsq.v33i2.3719 |issn=2159-8371|doi-access=free }}{{Cite journal |last=Kuusisto |first=Stephen |date=2012 |editor-last=Nielsen |editor-first=Kim E. |title=Disability and Democracy |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/wilsonq.36.4.15 |journal=The Wilson Quarterly |volume=36 |issue=4 |doi=10.2307/wilsonq.36.4.135 |issn=0363-3276|url-access=subscription }}{{Cite web |last=McLemee |first=Scott |date=September 26, 2012 |title=Review of Kim E. Nielsen, "A Disability History of the United States" |url=https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2012/09/26/review-kim-e-nielsen-disability-history-united-states |access-date=2022-04-04 |website=Inside Higher Ed |language=en}}

Filmmaker John Gianvito called The Radical Lives of Helen Keller "the best of the biographies" in a 2020 interview.{{cite magazine |last=Rosenbaum |first=Jonathan |title=Helen Keller and Untold Histories (Hers and Ours): An Interview with John Gianvito |magazine=Cinéaste |volume=46 |number=1 |date=2020 |pages=38–41 |jstor=26976473}} A 2021 essay in The New York Times calls The Radical Lives of Helen Keller "a revelation".{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/21/opinion/helen-keller.html |title=Is a Helen Keller Obsession Holding Disabled People Back? |type=Opinion |work=The New York Times |date=2021-10-21 |accessdate=2022-04-10}} In "Disability History, Power, and Rethinking the Idea of 'The Other{{'"}} (2005), historian Catherine Kudlick notes that "Unlike earlier biographers, Nielsen places Keller's life in the context of major trends in American history ... to understand her and her disability as rich and complex rather than as a feel-good caricature of one inspirational person."{{Cite journal|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25486184|jstor = 25486184|title = Disability History, Power, and Rethinking the Idea of "The Other"|last1 = Kudlick|first1 = Catherine J.|journal = PMLA|year = 2005|volume = 120|issue = 2|pages = 557–561}}

Nielsen has received honors from the Organization of American Historians (OAH) and the Southern Association for Women Historians (SAWH). The SAWH awarded her the 2007 Elizabeth Taylor Prize for the best article in southern women's history. In 1998, she was a Fulbright Scholar in Iceland, and in 2005 held an OAH Lectureship in Japan.

She is the winner of the 2021 Rosen Prize of the American Association for the History of Medicine for The Oxford Handbook of Disability History, co-edited with Michael Rembis and Catherine J. Kudlick.{{cite web |title=George Rosen Prize |url=https://www.histmed.org/about/awards/george-rosen-prize |publisher=AAHM| year = 2021}} The book also won the 2019 Disability History Association Book Award.{{cite web |title=PUBLIC DISABILITY HISTORY AWARD |url=http://dishist.org/?page_id=291 |website=Disability History Association}}

• {{Cite book |last=Nielsen |first=Kim E. |title=Un-American womanhood : antiradicalism, antifeminism, and the first Red Scare |date=2001 |publisher=Ohio State University Press |isbn=978-0-8142-5080-8 |location=Columbus}}
• {{Cite book |last=Nielsen |first=Kim E. |title=The radical lives of Helen Keller |date=2004 |publisher=New York University Press |isbn=978-0-8147-5814-4 |location=New York}}
• {{Cite book |title=Helen Keller : selected writings |date=2005 |publisher=New York University Press |isbn=978-0-8147-5829-8 |editor-last=Nielsen |editor-first=Kim E. |location=New York}}
• {{Cite book |last=Nielsen |first=Kim E. |title=Beyond the miracle worker : the remarkable life of Anne Sullivan Macy and her extraordinary friendship with Helen Keller |date=2009 |publisher=Beacon Press |isbn=978-0-8070-5050-7 |location=Boston}}
• {{Cite book |last=Nielsen |first=Kim E. |title=A disability history of the United States |date=2012 |publisher=Beacon Press |isbn=978-0-8070-2204-7 |location=Boston}}
• {{Cite book |title=The Oxford handbook of disability history |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2018 |isbn=978-0-19-023495-9 |editor-last=Rembis |editor-first=Michael |location=New York, NY |editor-last2=Kudlick |editor-first2=Catherine |editor-last3=Nielsen |editor-first3=Kim E.}}
• {{Cite book |url= |title=Money, Marriage, and Madness: The Life of Anna Ott |publisher=University of Illinois Press |year=2020 | isbn = 978-0252043147 |last1=Nielsen |first1=Kim E. }}

With Michael Rembis, Nielsen co-edits Disability Histories, a book series published by the University of Illinois Press. The series explores the lived experiences of individuals and groups from a broad range of societies, cultures, time periods, and geographic locations, who either identified as disabled or were considered by the dominant culture to be disabled.{{Cite web |title=DISABILITY HISTORIES |url=https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/find_books.php?type=series&search=DHS |website=University of Illinois Press}}

From 2015 to 2018 she coedited the Disability Studies Quarterly with Allyson Day.{{Cite journal |title=Disability Studies Quarterly |date=May 26, 2016 |volume=36 |issue=2 |publisher=Allyson Day |doi=10.18061/dsq.v36i2.5249 |url=https://dsq-sds.org/article/view/5249|doi-access=free }}

• {{cite journal |last1=Kleege |first1=Georgina |title=Kim Nielsen. Beyond the Miracle Worker: The Remarkable Story of Anne Sullivan Macy and Her Extraordinary Friendship with Helen Keller. Boston: Beacon Press, 2009. |url=https://dsq-sds.org/article/view/5249 |journal=Disability Studies Quarterly|date=May 26, 2016 |volume=36 |issue=2 |doi=10.18061/dsq.v36i2.5249 |doi-access=free }}
• {{Cite journal |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/840593/pdf |title=Money, Marriage, and Madness: The Life of Anna Ott |journal=Indiana Magazine of History |publisher=University of Illinois Press |year=2020 |volume=117 |issue=4 |pages=320–321 |last1=Chamberlain |first1=Chelsea D.}}

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{{Wikiquote}}

• Kim Nielsen, [https://www.uwyo.edu/wind/anniversary/ "Disability History, Disability Justice, and Future Directions"] (November 7, 2019), a presentation given at the Wyoming Institute for Disabilities (WIND)
• Science History Institute, [https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/podcast/bonus-episode-interview-with-kim-nielsen "Bonus Episode: Interview with Kim Nielsen"] Distillations (August 13, 2020). A podcast interview conducted by Rigoberto Hernandez, available in audio and transcript.
• Kim Nielsen, Rabia Belt, and Beth Linker, [https://www.masshist.org/events/introduction-disability-history "Disability and the American Past: An Introduction to Disability History"] (October 7, 2021), a webinar sponsored by the Massachusetts Historical Society

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Category:University of Toledo faculty

Category:Disability studies academics

Category:Living people

Category:Year of birth missing (living people)

Category:Place of birth missing (living people)

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