Susan Juster oversees the Research division that hosts more than 150 long- and short-term research fellows each year, selected through a competitive, peer-review process that provides $1.4 million in awards. These fellows join some 1,700 researchers who visit The Huntington annually to mine its massive collection of rare books, manuscripts, maps, photographs, art, and related materials in pursuit of their projects—producing academic monographs and scholarly articles, bestselling and prizewinning books, acclaimed documentary films, and works related to history. Juster also leads the more public-facing research activities of conferences, lectures, and related programs.
Prior to joining The Huntington, Juster was the Rhys Isaac Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan, where she also served as Associate Dean for Social Sciences in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. A recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow, Juster is the author of numerous books on the religious history of the early English Atlantic. In 2014, she was awarded a yearlong fellowship at The Huntington which led, in part, to the publication of her 2016 book, Sacred Violence in Early America. Her most recent book, A Common Grave: Being Catholic in English America, is forthcoming in Spring 2025.
Publications
Sacred Violence in Early America offers a sweeping reinterpretation of the violence endemic to 17th-century English colonization by reexamining some of the key moments of cultural and religious encounters in North America. Susan Juster explores different forms of sacred violence—blood sacrifice, holy war, malediction, and iconoclasm—to uncover how European traditions of ritual violence developed during the wars of the Reformation were introduced and ultimately transformed in the New World.
