BOOK MONOGRAPHS

[Forthcoming] A Primer for Class Struggle: Communist Workers’ Schools, 1923-1956. Routledge Press.

From Popular Front to Cold War: The Interracial Left and the International Workers Order, 1930–1954, eds. Elissa Sampson and Robert M. Zecker (Cornell University Press.) (2025.)

“A Road to Peace and Freedom”: The International Workers Order and the Struggle for Economic Justice and Civil Rights, 1930-1954 (Temple University Press.) (2018.)

America’s Immigrant Press: How the Slovaks Were Taught to Think Like White People. New York: Continuum, 2011.  

ARTICLES/BOOK CHAPTERS

“‘The Doors of America Are Flung Open to Some of the Worst Fascist Scum’: The Fight for Social Democracy at Home and Abroad in the Early Cold War,” submitted to American Communist History. (Under Review)

“‘Training for the Class Struggle’: Communist Workers’ Schools, 1923-1956,” in the Journal of Critical Educational Policy Studies (2025.)

“Now It’s a School for Working People They Want to Destroy!”: Alternative Spaces for Radical Pedagogy in F’ed-Up* Times. (* Fascist!),” in Conference Proceedings of International Conference on Critical Education, Thessaloniki, Greece (2025.)

“‘Spotlight on Jim Crow’: Radical Immigrant Papers Cover Race and Civil Rights,” in Immigration and Exile Foreign-Language Press in the U.K. and U.S., Benedicte Deschamps and Stephani Prevost, eds. Bloomsbury Press. (2024.)

“‘What is Workers’ Education?’ Communist Party Workers’ Schools,” in Conference Proceedings of International Conference on Critical Education, Ankara, Turkey (2024.)

“Our People Meet Their People: Race, Class and the Carpatho-Russians,” in Our People at 40, ed. Nick Kupsensky. (2024.)

“‘Suppressed by Swords and Lead’: Radical Slavic Newspapers Combat Colonialism,” in The Journal of Transnational American Studies vol. 15, no. 1 (2024)

“From the Classroom to the Soapbox: Multiethnic Workers Schools and Leftist Parties,” in Beyond Whiteness: Revisiting Jews in Ethnic America, edited by Jonathan Karp (Purdue University Press) (2023.)

“‘They Died from Misadventure and Accident’: Learning from our Missing Ancestral Failures,” in Journal of Working Class Studies (June 2023.)

Article online, for the Canadian Historical Association, “Grandma Stole the American Dream: Immigrants, Nostalgia, and the Myth of a Pure America.” (May 2023.)

“Teaching the American Far Right White to Canadian Undergraduates: ‘Thoughts and Prayers,’” in Conference Proceedings of International Conference on Critical Education, Thessaloniki, Greece (2022.)

“‘Nothing Less Than Full Freedom’ – Communist Foreign-Language Newspapers Champion Black Civil Rights,” in American Communist History. Vol. 20, nos. 3-4 (2021.)

 “‘Faith in the Masses’: The International Workers Order,” in Faith in the Masses. Edited by Tony Pecinovsky International Publishers (2020.)

“‘A People’s University’: Communist Workers’ Schools in America, 1920-1956,” in O Bella Ciao, special English-language edition of Educazione Aperta, no. 6 (2020.) [I co-edited the journal.]

“A Mandolin Orchestra Could Attract a Lot of Attention” Interracial Fun with Radical Immigrants.” American Communist History (2017.)

“Helping the Entire Nation”: The International Workers Order, Multiculturalism and Civil Rights Among Radical Immigrants in Red Scare America.” American Communist History (2017.)

“Radical Slavs, Race, Civil Rights and Anti-Communism in Red-Scare America.” in Whiteness Interrogated, Anum Dada and Shweta Kushal, eds. (Oxford, England: Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2016.)

“‘They Roamed All Over Fixing Things’: The Migratory Tinkers of Slovakia,” The Journal of American Ethnic History, Vol. 35 No. 2 (Fall 2015):  38-70.

“'We Dare Entertain Thoughts not to the Liking of Present-Day Bigots': Radical Slavs, Race, Civil Rights and Anti-Communism in Red-Scare America," The Journal of the Canadian Historical Association, Vol. 25, No.2 (2015):  117-158.

CONFERENCE PAPERS/PUBLIC PRESENTATIONS

December 2025: Working Class Studies Association, Sydney, Australia. “Mapping Old Left Radicalism on the Sidewalks of New York.”

July 2025: International Conference on Critical Education, Thessaloniki, Greece. “Now It’s a School for Working People They Want to Destroy!”: Alternative Spaces for Radical Pedagogy in F’ed-Up* Times. (* Fascist!).”

June 2025: Labor and Working Class History Association Conference, Chicago, University of Chicago. Chair and commentator, panel, “The Sacco Vanzetti Case, International Mobilization, and Living Memory.”

March 2025: American Studies Association, Southeast Regional Conference, New Orleans. “‘An Open Door for Fascism’: 75 Years of the McCarran Internal Security Act and Suppression of Free Thought.”

July 2024: International Conference on Critical Education, Ankara, Turkey. “‘What is Workers’ Education?’ Communist Party Workers’ Schools”

June 2024: Working Class Studies Association Conference, Old Westbury, N.Y., SUNY-Old Westbury. “That’s Just How We Rolled: A Radical Bowling League in 1940s Chicago.”

November 2023: Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies Conference, Philadelphia. Round table celebration of the 40th anniversary of Paul Magocsi’s book, “Our People”: Carpatho-Russians in North America. Commentary on race and ethnicity in Magocsi’s book. 

November 2023: American Studies Association Conference, Montreal, Canada. “‘Don’t Be a Boss’ Tool! Learn to Fight at the Workers’ School!’”

June 2023: Working Class Studies Association Conference, Chicago. “‘They Died from Misadventure and Accident’: Learning from our Missing Ancestral Failures.”

May 2023: Labor and Working Class History Association Conference, New Brunswick, N.J., Rutgers University. “‘For Workers of Hands and Brain’: The Communist Party’s Workers Schools.”

April 2023: Popular Culture Association Conference, San Antonio, Texas. “‘Ah Woe is me, Shame and Scandal in the Family’: Sir Lancelot Pindar’s Arthurian Calypso Adventures.”                                 

April 2023: Participant, Digital Humanities East workshop on digital mapping. Workshop co-organized by Dr. Laura Estill of the St. Francis Xavier University English Department.  

November 2022: American Studies Association Conference, New Orleans: Chair and commentator on a panel, “Fire is not a Metaphor,” papers on various Latino/a migrant and cultural themes.  

July 2022, International Conference on Critical Education, Thessaloniki, Greece. “Teaching the American Far Right White to Canadian Undergraduates: ‘Thoughts and Prayers.’”

June 2022: Working Class Studies Association, Corvallis, Oregon, Oregon State University. “Teaching the Far Right to Undergraduates.”

June 2022, Washington, D.C., Slovak American Society of Washington, D.C.: Zoom talk on Slovak immigrants, and my book, Race and America’s Immigrant Press: How the Slovaks Were Taught to Think Like White People. Invited to deliver the talk to the Slovak American Society of Washington (Washington, D.C.) by employees of the Library of Congress.

November 2021, Irish Working Class Studies Association Conference, Dublin, Ireland. “Radical Immigrants in Alliance with the Black Civil Rights Movement.”

October 2021, American Studies Association Conference, San Juan, Puerto Rico (but delivered virtually – a hybrid conference): “‘This Fascist Racism Must be Defeated’: Radical Immigrant Newspapers Champion Black Civil Rights.”

July 2021, invited keynote address. Carpatho-Rusyn Research Center 2021 Summer Seminars (Boulder, Colorado.) Zoom keynote address, “How the Carpatho-Rusyns Were Taught to Think Like White People: A Conversation with Robert Zecker.”

May 2021, Working Class Studies Association, zoomed into Youngstown, Ohio. “A Polish-Language Newspaper Champions Black Civil Rights in Red Scare America.”

December 2020, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. Conference, Di Linke: The Yiddish Immigrant Left from Popular Front to Cold War: “‘A Fraternal Order Sentenced to Death!’ The Curious Legal Persecution of the International Workers Order.” Conference co-organizer. Conference rescheduled, to be a Zoom Conference.

November 2020, American Studies Association Conference, Baltimore. “‘This Fascist Racism Must be Defeated’: Radical Immigrant Newspapers Champion Black Civil Rights.” *** <Conference Covid-ified.>

July 2020, Webinair, Greenwich Village Historical Society, New York, “The International Workers Order.” Invited as an expert by the GVHS, April 2020, to write letters in support of the bid to have New York Landmark status granted to the former IWO headquarters and other buildings with labor heritage in the Union Square area. Zoom Talk on the IWO for the Society.   

July 2020, International Arthurian Conference, Catania, Sicily, Italy. “‘Ah Woe is me, Shame and Scandal in the Family’: Sir Lancelot Pindar’s Arthurian Calypso Adventures.” *** <Conference Covid-ified.>

May 2020, Working Class Studies Conference, Youngstown State University, Youngstown, Ohio. “‘Nothing Less Than Full Freedom’ – Radical Immigrants Champion Black Civil Rights.” *** <Conference Covid-ified.>

May 2020, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. Conference, Di Linke: The Yiddish Immigrant Left from Popular Front to Cold War: “‘A Fraternal Order Sentenced to Death!’ The Curious Legal Persecution of the International Workers Order.” *** <Conference Covid-ified. Rescheduled as a Zoom conference, December 2020.>

September 2019, Working Class Studies Conference, University of Kent, Canterbury, England. “‘Carry Light to the Masses’: The International Workers’ Order and Proletarian Workers.”

July 2019, International Conference on Critical Education, Naples, Italy. “‘A People’s University’: Communist Workers’ Schools in America, 1930-1956.”

May 2019, Transfopress, Language Matters Conference, University Tre, Rome. “‘Nothing Less Than Full Freedom’ – A Polish-Language Newspaper Champions Black Civil Rights in Red Scare America.”

November 2018, American Studies Association, Atlanta, Georgia. Chair, “Defending Immigrants on the Borders” panel.

July 2018. Podcast, New York Public Library, Vito Marcantonio and the International Workers Order.

April 2018, Organization of American Historians, Sacramento, California, “The Fight Against the Cold War by Radical Immigrants in Postwar America.”

November 2017, American Studies Association, Chicago, “‘Carry the Light to the Masses’: The International Workers Order’s Proletarian Children’s Schools.”

October 2017, Language Matters Conference, Universite of Paris-Diderot, Paris. “Black and White and Read All Over: How the Immigrant Press Thought Slovaks to Think Like White People.” Invited keynote address at this international conference of scholars of the foreign-language press.

September 2017, Grenfell College, Memorial University, Corner Brook, Newfoundland. Invited public address to the university community. “White Rage in Dark Times: Contextualizing Race and Immigration in Post-Obama America.”    
June 2017, Labor and Working Class History Association, Seattle, “‘The Doors of America Are Flung Open to Some of the Worst Fascist Scum’: The Fight for Social Democracy at Home and Abroad in the Early Cold War.”

January 2017, American Historical Association conference, Denver, invited appearance on round table panel for the Polish American Historical Association critiquing the book The Polish Hearst by Ana Kirchmann.

November 2016, American Studies Association conference, Denver, chair and commentator, panel on “Crossing the Borders”: Mexican migrants to the U.S.

June 2016. Working Class Studies Association, “How Class Matters” conference, State University of New York Stony Brook. “‘They Auctioned Off a Pumpkin Ridiculing the House Un-American Activities Committee’: Red Joy and Subversive Laughter in a Time of McCarthyite Misery.”

April 2016. Organization of American Historians conference, Providence, Rhode Island. “‘Helping the Entire Nation’: The International Workers Order, Multiculturalism and Civil Rights among Radical Immigrants in Red Scare America.”

March 2016. Popular Culture Association conference, Seattle. “‘Our Workers’ Holiday is Not a Day of Rest and Play’:  Class-Conscious Fun with Radical Immigrants, 1920-1955.”   

2014, "'A Mandolin Orchestra Could Attract a Lot of Attention': Interracial Fun with Radical Immigrants, 1930-1954," paper presented to American Studies Association Conference, Los Angeles, November 6-9.

2013, "Radical Slavs, Race and Anti-Communism, 1930-1954," paper presented to Whiteness: Exploring Critical Issues Conference, Oxford University, Oxford, July 22-24.

ENCYCLOPEDIA ENTRY

“Robert Prager, German American Lynching Victim,” in Terrible Legacy: The Encyclopedia of Lynching in America, ed. by Michael Pfeifer (2025.)