Shamira Gelbman has been on the Wabash faculty since 2012. In addition to a wide range of courses on American politics, she has taught a freshman tutorial on bodybuilding and interdisciplinary courses on the civil rights movement, immigration policy, health, and the political history of Wabash College.
Dr. Gelbman’s research focuses primarily on the interest group and social movement organizations play in American politics. Her book, The Civil Rights Lobby: The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and the Second Reconstruction (Temple University Press, 2021), explores how nearly a hundred organizations collaborated to lobby for federal civil rights legislation during the 1950s and 1960s. She’s also the editor of Clio, the biannual newsletter of the American Political Science Association’s Politics and History section.
A native of Brooklyn, NY, Dr. Gelbman attended the City University of New York’s Hunter College before heading south to the University of Virginia for her graduate degrees. Before coming to Wabash, she taught at Illinois State University for five years. In her free time, she enjoys weightlifting, painting, and road tripping.
Education
Ph.D. in Government, University of Virginia (2008)
M.A. in Government, University of Virginia (2003)
B.A. in Political Science, Hunter College of the City University of New York (2000)
Recent Course Offerings
100 Years of Woman Suffrage: Women as Voters, Candidates, and Elected Officials in US Politics
Congressional Elections
Does the Muscle Make the Man? Bodybuilding in History and Society (Freshman Tutorial)
Governing Wabash
Introduction to American Politics
Parties, Elections, and Interest Groups
Politics of the Civil Rights Movement
Politics of U.S. Immigration Policy
Politics of the Voting Rights Act
Senior Seminar
Social Movements in the United States
Sociology and Politics of Health
State and Local Politics
Recent Publications
Gelbman, Shamira M. 2021. The Civil Rights Lobby: The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and the Second Reconstruction. Temple University Press.
Gelbman, Shamira M. 2016. “Issue Coverage on Twitter: Evidence from Two 2014 Senate Races,” in Social Media and Politics: A New Way to Participate in the Political Process, Glenn Richardson, ed. ABC-CLIO.
Gelbman, Shamira. 2015. “Interest Groups, Twitter, and Civic Education,” in Civic Education in the Twenty-First Century: A Multidimensional Inquiry, Michael T. Rogers and Donald M. Gooch, eds. Lexington Books, pp. 273-290.
Gelbman, Shamira M. 2011. “A Qualitative Assessment of the Learning Outcomes of Teaching Introductory American Politics in Comparative Perspective,” Journal of Political Science Education 7:4, pp. 359-374.
Gelbman, Shamira M. and Jesse H. Rhodes. 2011. “Ideology Construction, Grassroots Mobilization, and Party Strategy in South Africa and the United States, 1934-1948,” Polity 43:2, pp. 154-178.
Gelbman, Shamira M. 2007. “Race, Inequality, and Liberal Democracy,” Polity 39:2, pp. 259-275.