
Michael G. Smith
Professor
// History
Faculty
Professor
// Cornerstone
Faculty
Office and Contact
Room: UNIV 027
Office hours:
- Spring 2023
- 11:30 AM
- By appointment
- or by email
Email: mgsmith@purdue.edu
Phone: (765) 496-2420
Fax: (765) 496-1755
Courses
Transformative Texts: Critical Thinking and Communication I & II (SCLA 101 and 102)
History of Russia to 1861 (HIST 238)
History of Russia from 1861 (HIST 239)
History of Aviation (HIST 384)
History of the Space Age (HIST 387)
Students
Purdue undergraduate students in the Department of History’s Aerospace History archival-research seminars (History 395) have published their papers in both local and national forums over the last several years. See, for example:
Matt Meyer, “Happy Landings: The Aviation Career of Purdue’s Ralph Johnson,” Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research 5/9 (Fall 2015): 64-71.
Amanda Wegener, “Art from the Inside: NASA Mission Insignia and Patches,” Quest: The History of Spaceflight Quarterly 23/4 (2016): 3-17.
Michael Brannigan, “America’s First Cosmonauts: Reflections on the Human Cost of Shuttle-Mir,” Astropolitics: The International Journal of Space Politics & Policy 15/1 (2017): 27-50.
Seven History students published their articles in Flight Paths: Purdue University’s Aerospace Pioneers (2018), an online pop-up magazine created by the Purdue Archives and Department of History.
Three Engineering and Science students (Sam Conklin, Alex Crick, and Jaehyeok Kim), published their seminar work as Man + Machine: Research from Purdue's Neil A. Armstrong Papers, in Think (Fall 2019), the magazine of the College of Liberal Arts.
Three History majors (Alexandra Seneczko, Jacob Pranger, and Alek Wisinski) published excerpts of their seminar papers in the compilation, Purdue Students Study Boilermaker Eugene Cernan’s Remarkable Career (31 January 2023).
Purdue History graduate students have also achieved success with aerospace topics:
Caitlin Fendley, “First Contact: Apollo 11 Astronauts as Field Workers and Test Subjects,” Quest: The History of Spaceflight Quarterly 29/2 (2022): 23-38.
John Chamberlin, “Pearl Harbor and Purdue University: Pioneer Aviators Seek What Lies Before,” Air Power History 67/1 (Spring 2020): 27-33.
Specialization
Michael Smith teaches Russian History and Aerospace History. He received his Ph.D. from Georgetown University in 1991. Here are his publications:
Books
The Rocket Lab: Maurice Zucrow, Purdue University, and America’s Race to Space (West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 2023).
Rockets and Revolution: A Cultural History of Early Spaceflight (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2014).
Language and Power in the Creation of the USSR, 1917-1953 (Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter Publishers, 1998).
Editions
Editor with Isaiah Gruber and Sandra Pujals, “Russia beyond the Traditional Boundaries: Essays in Honor of David M. Goldfrank,” in Russian History 41/1-2 (2014): double issue with sixteen articles.
Editor with A.I. Zevelev et al., Istoriia natsional’nykh politicheskikh partii Rossii / A History of the National Political Parties of Russia (Moscow: Russian Political Encyclopedia, 1997).
Articles
“Marx, Technocracy and the Corporatist Ethos,” Studies in Soviet Thought 36 (1988): 233-250.
Chapters
“An Empire of Substitutions: The Language Factor in the Russian Revolution,” in The Battle for Ukrainian: A Comparative Perspective, ed. Michael S. Flier and Andrea Graziosi (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2017), 143-166. Reprint.
“The Eurasian Imperative in Early Soviet Language Planning: Russian Linguists at the Service of the Nationalities,” in Beyond Sovietology: Essays in History and Politics, ed. Susan G. Solomon (Armonk, New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1993): 159-91.
“Ethnicity and Culture,” in The Soviet Union, ed. Daniel C. Diller (Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly, 1990): 129-149.
Various
“Stalinism and the Genesis of Cosmonautics,” in Russian Science Fiction Literature and Cinema: A Critical Reader, ed. Anindita Banerjee (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2018): 201-213.
“The People’s Commissariat for Nationality Affairs,” in The Modern Encyclopedia of Russia, Soviet, and Eurasian History, #16, ed. Bruce Adams (Gulf Breeze, Florida: Academic International Press, 2005): 183-187.
“The Archeology of Empire in Baku,” Surviving Together: A Quarterly on Grassroots Cooperation in Eurasia 14/4 (Winter 1996): 47-49.
“Tongue Ties: A Brief Historical Survey of Language Politics in the USSR” and “Finding the Right Words: The Status of the Native Language in Azerbaijan,” Surviving Together: A Quarterly on Grassroots Cooperation in Eurasia 13/1 (Spring 1995): 57-60.
“For Rationalization of Language: The Bolshevik Experience with Esperanto,” in The Idea of a Universal Language, ed. Humphrey Tonkin and Karen Johnson-Weiner (New York: Center for Research of World Language Problems, 1986): 69-76.