Gautham Rao Associate Professor CAS | History
- Additional Positions at AU
- Graduate Director, History
- Deputy Department Chairperson
- Degrees
- Ph.D., 2008, University of Chicago
M.A., 2002, University of Chicago
A.B., 2000, University of Chicago - Bio
-
Gautham Rao is a legal historian of early America and the United States. He joined the Department of History at American University in 2012 after previously teaching at Rutgers/NJIT and completing a postdoctoral fellowship at the Library Company of Philadelphia. Rao was also a Samuel I. Golieb Fellow of Legal History at the New York University School of Law and a Hurst Fellow at the University of Wisconsin Law School. Rao’s latest book, White Power: Policing American Slavery will be published in May, 2026 by Hodding Carter III Books. His first book, National Duties: Custom Houses and the Making of the American State was published by the University of Chicago Press in 2016.
Rao is currently working on a book about the historical importance of the television show The West Wing. He is also beginning work on a new legal and constitutional history of the Confederate States of America.
At American University, Rao teaches a wide range of courses, from “The West Wing as History” to General Education courses "Why Big Government?", "Hannah Arendt, Ethics, and Citizenship," "Law and America's Racial Crisis," "American Encounters" and "Social Forces that Shaped America." He also teaches graduate courses such as Colloquium in U.S. History 1, Graduate Research Seminar, and The Historian's Craft. In 2016-2017,The Center for Teaching and Learning named him a Partner in Teaching Fellow.
Since 2017, he has served as Editor-in-Chief of Law & History Review, the leading scholarly journal of legal history. In 2025, he received the Craig Joyce Medal from the American Society for Legal History for meritorious service to the Society. Currently, Rao is Editor-in-Chief of the Oxford Bibliography of Legal History. He previously served on the Advisory Council of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic, and is a founding member of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Historians’ Council on the Constitution. He has contributed to historians' amicus briefs for cases before the Supreme Court of the United States, including the Emoluments Clause cases concerning former President Donald J. Trump. The American Historical Association appointed him to a three year term (2024-7) as a referee on the Little-Griswold Prize Committee, which recognizes the best book in law and society for the Association. Rao serves on the editorial board of the Papers of Andrew Jackson, the Cambridge History of the American Revolution, and the Journal of American Constitutional History.
- For the Media
- To request an interview for a news story, call AU Communications at 202-885-5950 or submit a request. Explore all AU Faculty Experts in our media guide.
Teaching
Summer 2025
-
HIST-751 Graduate Research Seminar
Fall 2025
-
HIST-446 Arendt, Ethics and Citizenship
-
HIST-744 The Historian's Craft
-
HIST-898 Doctoral Continuing Enrollment
-
HIST-898 Doctoral Continuing Enrollment
-
HIST-899 Doctoral Dissertation
Spring 2026
-
CORE-202 AU Encounters
-
CORE-202 AU Encounters
-
CORE-202 AU Encounters
-
HIST-196 Selected Topics:Non-Recurring: America At 250: Revolution
-
HIST-196 Selected Topics:Non-Recurring: America At 250: Independence
-
HIST-196 Selected Topics:Non-Recurring: America At 250: Legacies
-
HIST-244 Law & America's Racial Crisis
-
HIST-898 Doctoral Continuing Enrollment
-
HIST-899 Doctoral Dissertation