Caroline Ritter is an assistant professor with the School of Public Policy and the Department of History. An expert on the United Kingdom and its global relationships, her research engages broad questions around decolonization, migration, language and media.
Ritter is a historian of modern Britain, focusing on the histories of imperialism, race and development. She is the author of Imperial Encore: The Cultural Project of the Late British Empire (University of California Press, 2021), which examines the history of British cultural diplomacy in Africa during the twentieth century. Her current research analyzes the interplay of education and immigration policy, national security concerns and government-business ties in the evolution of English-language teaching (sometimes called ELT or ESOL) in the United Kingdom after 1945. Given similar questions in the United States surrounding education standards and access, as well as debates over how to balance international students’ participation in higher education against perceived national security challenges, the research carries implications for contextualizing and engaging contemporary challenges.
Ritter received her B.A. in History from Swarthmore College and her Ph.D. in History from the University of California, Berkeley. Prior to coming to Maryland, she was an associate professor of history at Texas State University.
- European history; immigration policy; international organizations; global governance
Provides an overview of the key historical and contemporary forces and structures (e.g., the United Nations, decolonization, (de)globalization) defining the context within which global issues play out and foreign policy is conducted. Specific emphasis is placed on the legacy effects of prior policy choices, questions of which actor(s) have more or less influence in global and foreign policy decisions and why, and the importance of considering intended and unintended consequences of a given decision or initiative.
