New Faculty Spotlight: Corbin Page, Postdoctoral Fellow in History and Democracy Studies
We're excited to spotlight Dr. Corbin Page, who joined the UM Democracy Studies faculty in Fall 2025 as our Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the History and Cultures of U.S. Democracy and Civic Knowledge. His position is supported by the major grant that the Mellon Foundation last year awarded UM History to support their work building UM's new interdisciplinary Democracy Studies Program. Corbin answered a few of Professor Kyle Volk's questions about his path to history & democracy studies, and to UM.
Q: Tell us about you, and in particular how and why you became a historian.
A: I took a winding route to history. I was a philosophy major as an undergraduate and then attended law school at the University of Texas at Austin. During law school, I worked in public defender’s offices and in UT’s capital punishment and criminal defense clinics. I became interested in history because it showed that the way the criminal legal system worked was a product of history; it was not natural or inevitable. By the end of law school, I knew I wanted to stay in academia and keep thinking about the criminal legal system. I initially thought an interdisciplinary field like American Studies might be the best fit for me. History seemed out of the question since I hadn’t taken a proper history course since high school (though when you study law, you are also studying history). But I audited a graduate American Studies course at UT Austin, taught by a historian, who encouraged me to apply to history programs in addition to American Studies programs. Somehow, I got into history programs and chose to attend one at the University of Chicago.
Q: What are your research interests and what will you be working on while at UM?
A: I study the history of incarceration and detention in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century U.S. Right now, I am working on a book manuscript and a couple of articles on the history of laws passed in the twentieth-century U.S. that allowed authorities to civilly detain people deemed sexually abnormal and dangerous. Many of these people were detained indefinitely without criminal trials and with minimal procedural protections. I am interested in what happened to them and how they used the law to fight for their rights.
Q: What classes will you be teaching at UM?
A: At the 91次元, I am teaching a lecture course on the American Revolution and Founding Era, a research seminar on Public Problems and U.S. Democracy, and a new course, The Challenge of Citizenship, which will be a cornerstone course in the new Democracy Studies program. The Challenge of Citizenship will be a nontraditional course in which students will read different sets of primary sources and help one another understand them. I also expect to offer courses in U.S. Legal History, the History of Crime and Punishment, and, perhaps, America in the 1960s.
Q: What got you excited about the position at UM in History and Democracy Studies?
A: I am excited about UM and the Democracy Studies program because it is an opportunity to think with students and faculty about fundamental questions. What is a democratic society? Is it one that uses certain procedures to make political decisions? Is it one in which political decisions reflect the will of the majority? Is it about consensus or allowing room for irreconcilable conflict? In a democratic society, should the economy also be one in which decisions about resource allocation are made together? History has a lot to say about these questions, but it is not the only field with useful insights. I am excited that Democracy Studies is an interdisciplinary program that encourages discussion across the university.
Q: What have been your biggest surprises since coming to Missoula and UM?
A: At UM, I have been impressed by the sense of community in the history department and students’ interest in historical study. The department has been so welcoming, and I have enjoyed participating in workshops and getting to know faculty and graduate students. The students I have worked with have been deeply curious about history, always bringing important insights to class and office hours. In Missoula more broadly, I have appreciated how many events the city puts on and how much there is to do here.