Curriculum Vitae
ACADEMIC APPOINTMENT
College of Charleston
Department of History, associate professor, 2024-present
Department of History, assistant professor, 2018-2024
University of North Florida
Department of History, assistant professor, 2015-2018
EDUCATION
Ph.D. in U.S. History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2015
M.A. in U.S. History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2010
M.A. in Teaching, University of South Carolina, 2005
B.A. in Journalism and Mass Communication, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2003
PUBLICATIONS
Sexual Violence and American Slavery: The Making of a Rape Culture in the Antebellum South. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2024
“‘The Greater Part of Slaveholders Are Licentious Men’: Articulating a Sexual Exploitation Consciousness in the Antebellum South.” In Ideas in Unexpected Places: Reimagining Black Intellectual History, eds. Leslie M. Alexander, Brandon R. Byrd, and Russell Rickford. Northwestern University Press, 2022.
“‘It’s Possible That He is the Author of the Poor Thing’s Being’: Interracial Sex and the Battle with Honor.” In The Gendered Republic: Women and Men in the United States, 1776-1861, eds. Craig Thompson Friend and Lorri Glover. (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, forthcoming)
Review, Anna Mae Duane, ed. Child Slavery Before and After Emancipation: An Argument for Child-Centered Slavery Studies (2017), Journal of Southern History 85, no.2 (2019): 444-445
Review, Sergio A. Lussana, My Brother Slaves: Friendship, Masculinity, and Resistance in the Antebellum South (2016), Journal of American Nineteenth Century History 20, no.3 (2019): 324-326
FELLOWSHIPS
Postdoctoral Research Leave Fellowship, American Association of University Women, 2021-2022
Race and Gender History Postdoctoral Fellowship, Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis, Rutgers University, 2017-2018
Postdoctoral Fellowship in African American History, Africana Research Center, Pennsylvania State University, 2017-2018, declined
Postdoctoral Fellowship in African American History, Richards Civil War Era Center, Pennsylvania State University, 2017-2018, finalist
Faculty Development Grant, University of North Florida, 2017
Post-Doctoral Fellowship, Dept. of History, N.C. State University, 2015-2016, declined
UNC Graduate School Dissertation Completion Fellowship, 2014-2015
P.A.A.H. Dissertation Fellowship at the Library Company of Philadelphia, Fall 2014, declined
OP-EDS AND INTERVIEWS
Interview, “Behind the Scenes at Medieval Times & When Feeling Blue is a Good Thing,” Small Town Big Deal, October 2023, https://youtu.be/4xpIfMtEWkw?si=1xmlYm6nn_g97Id3
Interview, If These Walls Could Talk documentary, March 2021, https://vimeo.com/511619775
Interview, “Understanding the Emancipation Proclamation,” Fox 24 News, Charleston, SC, Sept. 23, 2020, https://youtu.be/U36iZn7r20Q
Op-ed, with Adam Domby, Ph.D. and Cappy Yarborough, M.A. “Tell the Stories of Those Who Have Enriched Charleston’s History,” Charleston City Paper, July 1, 2020. https://charlestoncitypaper.com/2020/07/01/tell-the-stories-of-those-who-have-enriched-charlestons-history/
Interview, “The Awkward Questions About Slavery From Tourists in US South,” BBC News, Oct. 2, 2019, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49842601
Interview, “Charleston Plantation Guides Say a Negative Reaction to Stirring History Can Be a Good Thing,” Charleston City Paper, Aug. 21, 2019 https://charlestoncitypaper.com/2019/08/21/charleston-plantation-guides-say-a-negative-reaction-to-stirring-history-can-be-a-good-thing/
CONFERENCES AND COLLOQUIA
“‘He is the Author of the Poor Thing’s Being’: A Story of Interracial Sex, Extortion, and an Enslaved Mother’s Will to Fight,” British American Nineteenth Century Historians Conference, Oxford, England, September 2023.
The Ramifications of Laboring as US Historians in the American South Roundtable, panelist, Southern Labor Studies Association Conference, Chapel Hill, NC, September 2022
Charleston Bound: Encountering Ties Between the City’s Past and Present, panelist, International Conference on Romanticism, Charleston, SC, October 14, 2021
“One Enslaved Woman’s Quest to Define Family and Achieve Financial Stability in the Wake of Sexualized Violence,” Association for the Study of African American Life and History Conference, Virtual, September 2021
“Negotiating Sexual Servitude in the Antebellum South,” Berkshire Conference of Women Historians Triennial Meeting, Baltimore, MD, May 2020 (cancelled due to Covid 19 pandemic)
“Enslaved Women and Agency within the Confines of a Rape Culture in the Antebellum South,” Women and Slavery: Agency and Constraint in the Slave South Symposium, Manchester, England, January 2019
“In Need of Defense: Slaveholding Women and the Legal Battle Against White Men’s Illicit Intercourse with the Female Slave,” Southern Association of Women’s Historians Conference, Tuscaloosa, AL, June 2018
“Concubines, Fancy Girls, and Kept Women: Exploration of Enslaved Women’s Agency Within the Confines of Concubinage in the Antebellum South,” Southern Labor Studies Association Conference, Athens, GA, May 2018
“‘Regarded as Fair-looking for One of My Race’: Implications of Beauty in Enslaved Communities in the Sexually Exploitive South,” McNeil Center for Early American Studies Brown Bag Session, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, October 2017
“‘A Sad Epoch’: Articulations of a Culture of Rape and Sexual Exploitation in the Antebellum South,” Black Bodies Seminar Series, Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, November 2017
“Constructions of a Culture of Rape and Sexual Exploitation within Enslaved Communities in the Antebellum South,” African American Intellectual History Society Conference, Nashville, TN, March 2017
“On Unstable Ground: Sexual Exploitation and the Challenges for Enslaved Men and Women’s Intimate Relationships,” Association for the Study of African American Life and History Conference, Richmond, VA, October 2016
“Sexual Exploitation Consciousness and Its Impact on Enslaved Women’s Most Intimate Decisions,” Society for Historians of the Early American Republic Conference, New Haven, CT, July 2016
“‘The Men Had No Comfort With Their Wives’: Enslaved Men and Masculinity in the Midst of Sexual Exploitation,” Southern Historical Association Conference, Little Rock, AR, November 2015
“‘The Men Had No Comfort With Their Wives’: Enslaved Men and Masculinity in the Midst of Sexual Exploitation,” Past to Present Lecture Series, University of North Florida, October 2015
“‘The Men Had No Comfort With Their Wives’: Enslaved Men and Masculinity in the Midst of Sexual Exploitation,” The Southern Labor Studies Association Conference, College Park, MD, March 2015
“Terms of Engagement: Considering Enslaved Women’s Perceptions of Consent and Agency in the Midst of Sexually Coercive Relationships,” The Association for the Study of African American Life and History Conference, Pittsburgh, PA, September 2012
Virginia Historical Society Summer Research Colloquium, July 2012
“History’s Shadow: Slavery and Status,” Loving Then and Now: The Context and Impact of a Landmark Civil Rights Opinion Conference, Center for the Study of the American South, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, Spring 2012
“Black Women’s Activism,” Working Group in Feminism and History and the Triangle African American History Colloquium, March 2011
INVITED TALKS
“Enslaved Women and Sexual Violence,” National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute, theme: “Courting Liberty” Slavery and Equality Under the Constitution, 1770-1870,” Charleston, SC, July 2022
“Articulating a Sexual Exploitation Consciousness in the Antebellum South,” Second Calvary Baptist Church, Columbia, SC, February 13, 2022.
“Power and Powerlessness in the Plantation System,” Drayton Hall Preservation Trust, Charleston, SC, February 10, 2022.
“Slavery and Sexual Exploitation in the Antebellum South,” Phyllis Wheatley Literary Society and Social Club, Charleston, SC, February 17, 2021
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
College of Charleston, 2018-present
Department of History
Hist 118: Slavery in the Americas
Hist 210: African American Sexuality from Slavery to Freedom
Hist 216: African American History to 1865
Hist 217: African American History since 1865
Hist 410: Research Seminar in US History: The Long Civil Rights Movement
Hist 590: Graduate Seminar in US History: Readings in African American History
Hist 770: Independent Study in History
University of North Florida, 2015-2018
Department of History
AMH 3170: Civil War and Reconstruction
AMH 3220: Making of Modern America: 1877-1920
AMH 3403: History of the New South: 1865-present
AMH 3571: African American History Since 1865
AMH 4390/5934: Undergraduate/Graduate Seminar: Slavery in the US
AMH 4906: Independent Study: Early African American History
AMH 6905: Graduate Seminar: Readings in US History to 1865
AMH 6936: Graduate Research Seminar: African American History
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2012-2013
Department of History
Hist 128: US History Since 1865, instructor
Department of African, African American, and Diaspora Studies
Afam 102: The Black Experience Since 1865, instructor
PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
Association of Black Women Historians
Association for the Study of African American Life and History
Southern Historical Association
African American Intellectual History Society
Berkshire Conference of Women Historians
Southern Labor Studies Association
Southern Association for Women Historians
American Association of University Professors