Theresa Levitt

Cook Chair and Professor of History

Theresa Levitt

Dr. Theresa Levitt is a Professor of History in the Department of History at the University of Mississippi.

Research Interests

  • History of science and technology 
  • France in the revolutionary era 
  • Visual and olfactory culture 

Biography

Dr. Levitt studied physics as an undergraduate at M.I.T., but was always interested in the bigger question of how scientific knowledge was constructed. She studied history at Iowa State University, and ultimately earned a degree in the History of Science at Harvard. 

Publications

book cover of an illustration of an elixir bottle

A Story of Perfume, Science and the Search for the Secret of Life

 

From the publisher:

For centuries, scientists believed that living matter possessed a special quality—a spirit or essence—that differentiated it from nonliving matter. But by the nineteenth century, the scientific consensus was that the building blocks of one were identical to the building blocks of the other. Elixir tells the story of two young chemists who were not convinced, and how their work rewrote the boundary between life and nonlife.

Courses Taught

  • HIST 1210 Intro to European History Since 1648
  • HIST 3470 Science in the Modern World
  • HIST 4780 History of Pharmacy
  • HONR 1010 Freshman Honors I
  • HONR 1020 Freshman Honors II

Education

M.A. History, Harvard University (2001)

Ph.D. History, Harvard University (2002)

B.S. Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1993)