Cynthia Paces is a historian of modern Europe with extensive experience in Eastern Europe, whose teaching and scholarship center on places where cultures meet. A professor of history at The College of New Jersey since 1998, she has incorporated topics such as urban history, collective memory, family life, public health, religion, and nationalism into her research and teaching, and uses art, architecture, literature, film, music, and everyday life to understand the past. Cynthia’s recent book, Prague: The Heart of Europe, offers a sweeping history of the city from the ninth century to the present day and emphasizes the complex relationship among its Czechs, Germans, and Jews. She is also the author of Prague Panoramas: National Memory and Sacred Space in the Twentieth Century and co-editor of 1989: The End of the 20th Century.

Cynthia has traveled extensively in the former Yugoslavia and neighboring countries and taught seminars on the Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s, Muslims in Europe, and sacred spaces in global contexts. She regularly leads students on history study tours to destinations across Europe and Central Asia.