Professor Bench Ansfield joins Temple Honors from the College of Liberal Arts’ department of history, where they have worked since 2024 as an assistant professor. A self-described “interdisciplinary historian of race, capitalism, and US cities,” Professor Ansfield is a graduate of Wesleyan and Yale Universities and has received several prestigious fellowships at schools such as Harvard and Dartmouth. Ansfield also spent five years living in Philly, and was involved with various organizing projects. 

Ansfield’s work spans a range of subject areas; their degrees are in American Studies and African American Studies, but their works have drawn on themes of Black Studies, Urban Design and Studies, Sociology, Economics, and, naturally, American and Global History. Initially, they say, their work focused more on the “ethnographic, theoretical” side of their field, but has since evolved to focus on the storytelling power that history can offer, and the potential for creating greater understanding and change that those stories possess.  

Their work has been published in The Washington Post, The New York Review of Books, Jewish Currents and other publications, and they were a researcher for the 2019 PBS documentary Decade of Fire. Their book, Born in Flames: The Business of Arson and the Remaking of the American City, was released in 2025. The book explores the waves of deliberate arson attacks in New York City and other American cities in the 1970s and 80s, which changed the shape of American cities. 

Why Temple Honors?  

Ansfield cites the community that is Temple Honors as a driving motivator for their decision to come onboard as a member of the freshman class of Honors Affiliated Faculty. Specifically, they point to the mantra of “Collaboration over Competition” as resonating deeply with their own ethos; given their belief in the storytelling power of history, they appreciate the opportunity for perspective and cultural exchange that a tightly-knit community of diverse scholars offers. “I've really been impressed by Temple students' willingness to really go there and push themselves to test their thinking in different scenarios,” Ansfield said, “and sometimes that means changing their thinking on different topics.” 

Goals And Plans for Temple Honors 

Professor Ansfield has both tangible and intangible goals for their tenure as Honors-affiliated faculty. On the academic side of things, Ansfield hopes to teach a class that would examine the urban history of housing in and around Philadelphia; students would learn local history, and examine how historical trends, policies, and social issues have led to the current housing and houselessness crisis seen in the city today. The course would examine how, historically, housing and the politics behind it have shaped Philadelphia’s economy, communities, and politics, whilst also delving into more philosophical questions such as “What does it really mean to own a house?” and “How are our societies and communities shaped by the places we physically occupy?” 

On the other hand, Ansfield also hopes that they’ll be able to combine Temple Honors’ strong and diverse community with history to potentially combat the growing sense of unease and pessimism that many students feel in today’s political climate. “Classes can be laboratories for imagining a different world, for tapping into the power that everyday people have,” Ansfield said, “and that's especially true for history classes, right?  History will teach us how seemingly small actions add up and movements are made out of the kind of bravery and sense of possibility that everyday people have.” Ansfield hopes that, during their time as an Honors Affiliated Faculty, they will inspire students to tap into their own bravery and their own sense of possibility.