Beyond the Divide: Fostering Civic Dialogues, Strengthening Democracy

Natalia Mehlman Petrzela is a historian of contemporary American politics and culture. She is the author of CLASSROOM WARS: Language, Sex, and the Making of Modern Political Culture (Oxford University Press, 2015), and FIT NATION: The Gains and Pains of America’s Exercise Obsession (University of Chicago Press, 2023). She is co-producer and host of the acclaimed podcast WELCOME TO YOUR FANTASY, from Pineapple Street Studios/Gimlet and the co-host of PAST PRESENT podcast. She is a columnist for MSNBC Opinion, a frequent media guest expert, public speaker, and contributor to outlets including the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, and the Atlantic.

Natalia is a Carnegie Corporation Fellow in 2024-25, and is currently working on two new books, a short history of the school culture wars, and a history of the Hamptons, with historian Neil J. Young. She is the host and executive producer of a documentary series based on FIT NATION, in development with TIME Studios. Natalia began her career as a public school teacher, and she is currently Lead Historian on the Jewish American Hidden Voices curriculum for the New York City Department of Education, forthcoming in June 2025.

Natalia is a Professor of History at The New School, co-founder of the wellness education program Healthclass 2.0, and a Premiere Leader of the mind-body practice intenSati. Her work has been supported by the Spencer, Whiting, Rockefeller, and Mellon Foundations. She holds a B.A. from Columbia and a Ph.D. from Stanford and lives with her husband and two children in New York City.

M. Bess Vincent serves as the senior associate dean for strategy and chief of staff in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences. In this capacity, she works closely with the dean and the rest of the leadership team to ensure that strategic objectives and initiatives across the School of Arts and Sciences are successfully implemented, managed, and maintained in order to promote a competitive advantage. She has been instrumental to the development and implementation of the Krieger School’s Priorities for the Future. In addition, she led the Johns Hopkins University’s Women’s Suffrage Centennial Commemoration Committee, working in partnership with several Baltimore cultural institutions to offer public events, seminars, and exhibitions to inform and at times challenge our understanding of the history of the 19th Amendment and its effect on female empowerment today. 

Prior to joining Johns Hopkins University, she worked at Montgomery College, holding positions as assistant administrative dean and associate professor of sociology. She coordinated the Women’s and Gender Studies Program for the Takoma Park/Silver Spring campus and she served on the College’s Title IX Advisory Group, where she helped to develop and assess the effectiveness of pro-social bystander trainings. She also cultivated learning opportunities outside of the classroom by serving as the curator for the Frank Islam Athenaeum Symposia Speaker Series, a series created to encourage meaningful conversation, critical thinking and intercultural understanding about topics in the humanities and social sciences. 

Dr. Vincent earned a bachelor’s degree in Liberal Arts, with a concentration in humanities and social thought, from the Louisiana Scholars’ College. She holds a PhD in sociology from Tulane University.