Encountering danger, romance, heartache and tragedy, Catherine Merit strives to fit into a world filled with prejudice, hatred and violence where she is forced to kill a man in order to save herself. Third book of the Indignities Series.
Thank you for your interest in my novel, Shadows Walking, in my articles, in my stories and in my poems...
I, like you, I hope, am appalled by the general reception given to the Middle Eastern refugees, now risking their lives in desperation to find safe haven in Europe and beyond. Germany, at least for now, recognizes its humanitarian responsibilities to these refugees more fully that do mo
Background
Information
A bit about me...
I was born in Oakland, California in June 1941. Shortly afterwards, in December 1941, my father joined the U.S. Navy for the duration of World War II. We moved from Oakland to be with my maternal grandparents in Los Angeles. My mother and father were divorced the first time in 1942. They were married to each other and divorced from each other three times; during their fourth marriage to each other, in 1979, my father died. My mother's and my life were inextricably entangled in his life, a turbulent one to say the least.
After attending public schools in Los Angeles, California, I studied European history and German at Dartmouth College and Albert-Ludwigs Universität in Germany. I graduated from Dartmouth College (1963), received a Master's in Medieval Studies at Connecticut College (1964), and a Ph.D. in European history, focusing on modern Germany, from Brown University (1974).
From 1972 until my retirement from the State University of New York at Plattsburgh in 2007 with the rank of Distinguished University Teaching Professor of History, I taught courses on aspects of the World Wars, the Holocaust, medieval and modern Europe (especially Germany), education in Western civilization, survey courses in European history, and historical research skills and methods. In 1989, I received the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching. I also served as chairperson of the History Department for ten years, was often president of the faculty’s professional union, and in the final three years before my retirement, was presiding officer of SUNY Plattsburgh’s faculty.
I received a Fulbright Senior Scholar/Teacher Award In 1985-1986, allowing me to be a guest professor at a German university and to research medical ethics in Germany between 1880 and 1945. This research, in addition to a series of scholarly articles on the education of professional elites in Wilhelmine Germany, provided the base for my novel about a Nazi doctor, Shadows Walking. It explores the questions, why would a reasonable man, even a thoughtful man, allow himself to become a Nazi doctor, commit crimes against humanity, and what should happen to him, once we become aware of his crimes.
An inaugural Fellow in SUNY Plattsburgh's Institute for Ethics in Public Life in 1998, I am still active in the Institute's "guided inquiry" faculty seminars on ethics, ethical practices, and the curriculum.
I have published many scholarly articles on aspects of the history of the professions in Germany. I also was an editorial consultant and/or author of chapters on European history in numerous public school textbooks.
In 1989, I published Bright With Promise, a history of SUNY Plattsburgh’s first century; I continue to serve as SUNY Plattsburgh's College Historian in my retirement. As such, I hope to complete a brief photographic essay on SUNY Plattsburgh's last twenty-five years, in celebration of its 125th anniversary.