Richard Slotkin is a historian of American culture, focusing on the development of national myth, race and violence in American life, and the relation of mass media (esp. literature and film) to intellectual and political history.

Olin Professor of English and American Studies Richard Slotkin has established a reputation as one of the preeminent cultural critics of our times. His award-winning trilogy on the myth of the frontier in America, which includes Regeneration Through Violence, The Fatal Environment, and Gunfighter Nation offers an original and highly provocative interpretation of our national experience. Lost Battalions: The Great War and the Crisis of American Nationality uses the history of two WW 1 regiments as a window into the transformation of US ideas about race, ethnicity and nationality. No Quarter (2009) is a study of the Civil War's largest racial massacre. Long Road to Antietam traces the transformation of the Civil War into a revolutionary struggle. He has also published three historical novels: The Crater: A Novel of the Civil War; The Return of Henry Starr; and Abe: A Novel of the Young Lincoln, which won the Shaara award for Civil War fiction. His latest book is Greenhorns, a collection of stories based on the experiences of family members who emigrated to the US in the early 20th Century. In his more than 25 years at Wesleyan, he has helped to establish both the American Studies and the Film Studies Programs. He offers interdisciplinary courses in American literature, history and film. In 1995 he received the Mary C Turpie Award of the American Studies Association for his contributions to teaching and program-building.