Learning
Dr. Dunak publishes book on the history of weddings in postwar America
Assistant Professor of History Dr. Karen Duank has just published a new book, As Long as We Both Shall Love: The White Wedding in Postwar America.
Dr. Dunak’s book establishes that the evolution of the American white wedding emerges from our nation’s tendency towards privacy and the individual, as well as the increasingly egalitarian relationships between men and women in the decades following World War II.
Blending cultural analysis of film, fiction and advertising, as well as personal views expressed in letters, diaries, essays and oral histories, Dr. Dunak engages ways in which the modern wedding emblemizes a diverse and consumerist culture and aims to reveal a continuing debate about the power of peer culture, media and the marketplace in America.
Dr. Dunak joined the faculty in 2010. She earned her bachelor’s degree at American University and both her master’s and doctoral degrees at Indiana University. As a historian, she specializes in post-World War II United States history, with a particular interest in topics related to women and gender, youth culture, media and celebrity.
Published by New York University Press, the book is available form Amazon and from the publisher at nyupress.org.
