Assistant Dean and Professor (History and American Studies), College of Arts & Sciences, University of Virginia
VITAE
Professional Experience:
2016-present: Professor (History) & Assistant Dean—The University of Virginia.
2018-present: Co-Chair, University of Virginia President’s Commission on the University in the Age of Segregation.
2016-present: Managing Director, Universities Studying Slavery (USS) consortium
2016-present: Founder and Director, UVA Cornerstone Summer Institute
2013-present: Co-Chair, University of Virginia President’s Commission on Slavery and the University (http://slavery.virginia.edu).
2011-2016: Associate Professor (History) & Assistant Dean—The University of Virginia.
2010-2011: Associate Professor of History, Lynchburg College.
2009-2011: Chair, Department of History, Lynchburg College.
2012-2016: Editor—Virginia Social Science Journal, the peer-reviewed scholarly journal of the Virginia Social Science Association.
2009-2012: Associate Editor—Virginia Social Science Journal.
2008-2011: Graduate Teaching Faculty—Lynchburg College
2008-2009: Consultant—Diuguid Funeral Home Records Digitization Project (http://diuguid.gravegarden.org/index.php).
2007-2009: Director, Virginia History Research Center, Lynchburg College.
2006-2011: Fellowship Advisor, National Association of Fellowship Advisors (NAFA)
2004-2010: Assistant Professor, Lynchburg College
2003-2004: Visiting Assistant Professor (History), Lynchburg College
2003-2004: Assistant Professor (History), Piedmont Virginia Community College
Education
Ph.D. History, The Johns Hopkins University, 2005
M.A. History, The Johns Hopkins University, 2000
B.A. History, University of Virginia, 1997
Publications
Contributing author, Educated in Tyranny: Slavery at Jefferson’s University (Maurie McInnis and Louis Nelson, eds.), University of Virginia Press, 2019.
Co-editor, “UVA and the History of Race” article series in UVAToday. 2019-present.
Co-author, University of Virginia President’s Commission on Slavery and the University Report to President Teresa A. Sullivan, 2018.
Freedom Has a Face: Race, Identity, and Community in Jefferson’s Albemarle, 1780-1865, (Charlottesville, Va.: University of Virginia Press, 2012).
“Michelle Obama’s Speech and the Powerful Realities of American Slavery,” NBC News article, July 28, 2016. http://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/michelle-obama-s-speech-powerful-realities-american-slavery-n618811
Article interrogating the historical narrative presented in textbook entries and state standards regarding Denmark Vesey for Beyond the Textbook, for the National History Education Clearinghouse (teachinghistory.org), a partnership of the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University, the Stanford University School of Education, the American Historical Association, and the National History Center, August 2010. http://teachinghistory.org/history-content/beyond-the-textbook/24126
“Slaves Without Masters? The Butler Family of Albemarle County, Virginia, 1780-1860,” The Magazine of Albemarle County History, Vol. 55, 1997, pp. 39-59.
Reviews
Review of Jennifer Oast, Institutional Slavery: Slaveholding Churches, Schools, Colleges, and Businesses in Virginia, 1680-1860. Cambridge University Press, 2016. Forthcoming, History of Education Quarterly, V. 57, #2, pp. 13-16.
Digital history review of Two Plantations: Enslaved Families in Virginia and Jamaica (http://twoplantations.com/), Journal of American History, V. 102, #3, December 2015.
Review of Arica L. Coleman. That the Blood Stay Pure: African Americans, Native Americans, and the Predicament of Race and Identity in Virginia. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013), Journal of Interdisciplinary History. Volume 46, Issue 1, Summer 2015.
Review of Alan Taylor. The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832. (New York: Norton, 2013). Law and History Review, Volume 33, Issue 1, pp. 233-35. http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FLHR%2FLHR33_01%2FS0738248014000613a.pdf&code=cba9b94e92dd5dbad4063bbf512011e1
Review of William A. Link. Atlanta, Cradle of the New South: Race and Remembering in the Civil War’s Aftermath. (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 2013). The Historian, Spring 2015, Volume 77, Issue 1, pp. 128-29.
Review of Eva Sheppard Wolf. Almost Free: A Story About Family and Race in Antebellum Virginia. (Athens, Ga.: University of Georgia Press, 2012). August 2013, The Journal of Southern History.
Review of Max Grivno. Gleanings of Freedom: Free and Slave Labor Along the Mason-Dixon Line, 1790-1860. (University of Illinois Press, 2011). August 2012, Civil War Book Review (www.cwbr.com).
Review of Warren R. Hofstra and Karl Reitz, eds. The Great Valley Road of Virginia: Shenandoah Landscapes from Prehistory to the Present. (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2010), February 2012, Journal of Southern History.
Review of Gabor Borritt and Scott Hancock, eds., Slavery, Freedom, and Resistance, April 2010, H-South online review colloquium for H-NET (www.h-net.org).
Review of Andrew Levy, The First Emancipator: The Forgotten Story of Robert Carter, the Founding Father Who Freed His Slaves, August 2006, Journal of Southern History.
Review of Eric Burin, Slavery and the Peculiar Institution: A History of the American Colonization Society, November 2006, H-South online review colloquium for H-NET (www.h-net.org ).
Paper Presentations and Public Lectures
2022—Panelist, “Examining the Roots of Universities in Slavery and Anti Black Racism,” SPARC's Knowledge Equity Discussion Series, July 28. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SilcFvxrMU
2020—UVA Lifetime Learning Lecture at the Mariner’s Museum, Newport News, Virginia, March 3.
2020—Southern Intellectual History Circle Conference, University of the South (Sewanee) Keynote Lecture, February 27-29.
2020—”UVA’s Difficult History After 1865,” Rivanna Station Defense Intelligence Agency Lecture, February 25.
2020—“Free People of Color—Promise and Peril in Albemarle County,” Public Talk with K-12 teachers (part of “Teaching Hard History” programming) at Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, February 17.
2020—“Slavery at the University of Virginia,” Cale Elementary School, Albemarle County, February 7.
2020—“Understanding Virginia Slavery in Global Perspective,” Teaching Hard History lecture, Charlottesville Public Schools (part of a series in using state, local, and institutional history to animate larger historical themes), January 28.
2020—“How Did We Get Here? The University of Virginia, Slavery, and the Move Toward Restorative Justice,” Keynote panel presentation, Virginia Consortium of Early Americanists conference, University of Richmond, January 25.
2019—Roundtable Panelist, “The Rotunda from the perspective of the Enslaved,” Rotunda Planetarium: Science & Learning in UVA’s First Library conference, University of Virginia, November 1.
2019—Roundtable Panelist, “Universities and the History of Race,” ASALH conference, Charleston, South Carolina, October 3.
2019—“UVA’s Difficult Past, 1865-1965,” community engagement lecture, Fry’s Spring Beach Club, Charlottesville, Virginia, September 22.
2019—“Coming to terms with Slavery at UVA” lecture, University of Liverpool, Liverpool England, June 12.
2019—“Rum, Rummy, Rampaging, and Research: Students, Faculty, Slavery, and Life at Early UVA,” UVA Lifetime Learning Reunions lecture, Charlottesville, Virginia, May 31.
2019—Panelist, Education Writers Association Conference, Baltimore, Maryland, April 8.
2019—Speaker, Freedom and Liberation Day and Memorial Blessing Event at Rotunda, March 3.
2019—Panelist, “Free People of Color and the Expansion of Black Wealth in Charlottesville, 1865-1928,” at Jefferson School African American Heritage Center.
2019—“Slavery at the University of Virginia” presentation, Burnley Moran Elementary School, February.
2018—Roundtable Panelist, “Institutions Respond to Their History of Slavery,” Decolonizing the Museum-Transnational Comparisons Conference, Georgetown University, November. https://cges.georgetown.edu/news/decolonizing-the-museum-transnational-comparisons/
2018—“Rethinking the Academical Village,” Invited lecture with UVA Club of Washington, D.C., November.
2018—Roundtable panelist, “Building Repair Initiatives Across Institutions,” Universities, Slavery, Respond, and Repair—Universities Studying Slavery (USS) Fall Meeting, Tougaloo College, Jackson, Mississippi, October.
2018—Invited lecture on slavery at the University of Virginia, UVA Summer Jefferson Symposium, June.
2018—“Life and Labor of the Enslaved in the UVA Academical Village” lecture, Teaching Race at the University of Virginia Faculty Development Seminar, June.
2018—“A History of Pro-Slavery Thought and Education at UVA,” paper presentation for “Contested Spaces: Slavery and Peoples” panel, Education in the Early Republic and the Founding of the University of Virginia, conference co-sponsored by the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies and the American Philosophical Society, May.
2018—Roundtable panelist, “Covering Race on College Campuses,” Education Writers’ Association (EWA), Los Angeles, California, May. https://guidebook.com/guide/105020/event/19653823/
2018—Roundtable Panelist, “Universities and Slavery” panel at We Choose to Remember: A Conversation on the Legacies of Slavery conference honoring D.C. Emancipation Day, National Museum of African American History and Culture event on universities and slavery, April.
2018—Panelist, “American Universities: Reckoning with the Past, Part 1,” Duke University “American Universities, Monuments, and the Legacies of Slavery” Symposium (https://provost.duke.edu/initiatives/slavery-and-its-legacies), March.
2018—Plenary Panelist, “Universities Confronting Slavery,” UNESCO International conference on “New Approaches in Interpreting and Representing Slavery in Museums and Sites, Charlottesville, Virginia, March.
2018—“Slavery, Race, and Medical Education at the University of Virginia in the Nineteenth Century,” Invited lecture at University of Virginia Medical Center & School of Medicine, January.
2018—“Atoning for Slavery at the University of Virginia,” Invited lecture at the Tandem Friends School, January.
2018—Panelist, “Slavery and the University—Research in Action,” American Historical Association Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., January.
2017—Program Committee Chair, Universities, Slavery, Public Memory, and the Built Landscape Symposium, University of Virginia. A four-day conference with 500 participants.
2017—“Grave-Robbing at UVA” research presentation, “Slaves in the Classroom: Science, Medicine, Race, and Learning in Nineteenth Century America” panel, University of Virginia Universities, Slavery, Public Memory, and the Built Landscape Symposium, October.
2017—Panel Chair and Commenter, “Slavery, Freedpeople, and the Landscape,” University of Virginia Universities, Slavery, Public Memory, and the Built Landscape symposium, October.
2017—Panelist, “Slavery and Its Legacies at UVA,” University of Virginia Universities, Slavery, Public Memory, and the Built Landscape symposium, October.
2017— “The University of Virginia as Both Beacon of Economic Promise and Perilous Landscape of Violence for Rural Free People of Color,” Organization of American Historians (OAH) Annual Meeting paper presentation, April.
2017—Opening keynote remarks (as PCSU Co-Chair and USS Director), Universities Studying Slavery (USS) meeting at Georgetown University, March.
2017—Institutional representative, Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Universities and Slavery workshop, March.
2017—Panelist, University of Virginia Law School panel discussion on Thomas Jefferson and Slavery, February.
2016—"Slavery at Early UVA” invited lecture, UVA Lifetime Learning, UVA Club of Eastern Tennessee, Nashville, Tennessee, November.
2016—One-Day UVA invited lecture, “Slavery and Race in Jefferson’s Virginia,” Poplar Forest, Bedford County, Virginia, April.
2016—TEDx@UVA talk on Jefferson’s University: The Early Life project. February.
2016—Panel Chair and Commentator, “Free People of Color in the Nineteenth Century Southern United States,” at the American Historical Association’s January 2016 annual meeting in Atlanta.
2015—Panel presentation, “Slave Dwellings at the University of Virginia: Acknowledgement, Preservation, and Memorialization,” Slave Dwelling Project Conference, Charleston, South Carolina, October.
2015—Interview with New Books in American Studies (by Siobhan Barco) on my book, Freedom Has a Face, April 16.
2015—UVA Black Alumni Weekend Panel Discussion, “Slavery and the University,” Newcomb Hall, April 11.
2015—“The Work of the Enslaved Laborers at UVA in the Early Days,” UVA Lifetime Learning blog post, February 10.
2015—Panel Chair and Commentator, “Politics Big and Small: African Americans, Law, and the Negotiations of Slavery and Freedom in the Nineteenth-Century American South,” at the American Historical Association’s January 2015 annual meeting in New York City.
2014—Symposium chair, President’s Commission on Slavery and the University, “Universities Confronting the Legacy of Slavery, October.
2014—“Monuments to Conflicting Desires: Thomas Jefferson and Slavery at Monticello and the University of Virginia,” Invited public lecture at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia in conjunction with a special exhibit entitled “Slavery at Jefferson’s Monticello.” October.
2014—Panelist at UVA UPC & OAAA event: 12 Years a Slave screening and panel discussion, Newcomb Hall theater, February.
2013—“Awash in a Sea of Risk: The Free Afro-Virginian Struggle to Define Freedom and Achieve Economic Independence in an Agrarian Slave Society,” invited public lecture, Lynchburg College Senior Symposium Series, Lynchburg College. October.
2013—Jefferson-Madison Regional Library, Regional Author Series, invited public lecture and book signing for Freedom Has a Face: Race, Community, and Identity in Jefferson’s Virginia. April.
2013—Panelist, Jefferson School African American Heritage Center-sponsored panel discussion for Black History Month, “Legitimate Fruits of Freedom: The African American Struggle for Equal Opportunity in 19th Century Albemarle County,” Jefferson School City Center, January.
2013— “White Neighbors, a ‘Good Black, and useful Men’: Free People of Color, Local Knowledge, and the Law in Antebellum Virginia,” paper presented at the American Historical Association Annual Meeting, New Orleans, Louisiana, January.
2012-13—Lead Scholar, Let’s Talk About It: Making Sense of the American Civil War, a jointly funded project of the American Library Association and the National Endowment for the Humanities that engages participants (through the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library) in a series of five discussions of a common set of texts. As Lead Scholar, I delivered five lectures on a series of five different themes exploring the meanings of the Civil War. Lectures are followed by a lengthy discussion session (which I lead) with participants.
2012—“I’ll Show You What a Free Negro Is”: Black on White Violence and the County- Level Workings of the Law in Antebellum Virginia,” paper presented for the “Fissures in the Hegemon” panel at the American Society for Legal History Annual Conference, St. Louis, Missouri, November.
2011—Expert panelist on “Models & Rewards of Undergraduate Research,” Big South Undergraduate Research Symposium 2011’s Mentor Summit, Virginia Military Institute, April.
2010—Paper presentation, Virginia Social Science Association 2010 Annual Conference, Virginia State University: “Good Blacks and Useful Men: Reputation and Free Black Mobility in Antebellum Virginia,” April.
2009—Roundtable on academic publishing panelist, University of North Carolina at Charlotte Graduate History Forum, April.
2008—Daura Gallery at Lynchburg College invited lecture (in conjunction with a Jacob Lawrence exhibit), “Will the Real John Brown Please Stand Up?” Lynchburg, Virginia, November.
2008—Guest Lecturer, University of Virginia, “Racism and Poverty in American History,” October.
2008—Guest Lecturer, University of Virginia, “Third World Nation: Hurricane Katrina, Race, and Poverty in the United States,” February.
2007—Senior Symposium Lecture at Lynchburg College, “Black Trials: Bound Labor and British Prejudice Interact to Solve Virginia’s Peculiar Seventeenth Century Dilemma,” Lynchburg, Virginia, September.
2006—John M. Turner Humanities Lecture, “’White Neighbors, Good Blacks, and Useful Men,’ Free Blacks and Interracial Violence in Old Virginia,” Lynchburg College, Lynchburg, Virginia, November.
2006—University of Central Oklahoma Colloquium on Undergraduate Research in History, Edmund, Oklahoma, October 2006. Here, I designed a program for reforming Lynchburg College’s Historical Research & Writing class. I implemented the new design in fall 2007.
2003—“The Revolutionary War Generation of Free Blacks in Charlottesville, Virginia,” paper presented to the American History Seminar at the Johns Hopkins University, October.
2002—“Reconstructing the Rural Neighborhood: Race and Social Culture in Antebellum Virginia,” presentation to the International Center for Jefferson Studies, December 2002.
1998— “Race, Family, and Community in Jefferson’s Albemarle: Rural Free Black Life, 1780-1860,” paper presented to the American History Seminar at the Johns Hopkins University, April.
Honors, Grants, Awards, and Fellowships:
2019: University of Virginia I.M.P. Society Faculty Award.
2019—UVA DDI grant of $11,000 for RW Holsinger Project continuation as public exhibit across town in outdoor space.
2018—Virginia Humanities grant of $5,000, for RW Holsinger project exhibit and community event, the first phase of a longer-term effort to identify the subjects of a large group of African American photographic portraits from the Rufus Holsinger collection at UVA; and at the same time to encourage African American families in the Charlottesville area to share portraits of their ancestors as depicted by Mr. Holsinger (Project with John E. Mason and Worthy Martin that builds upon work begun by Scot French).
2015-18—UVA Office of Engagement, Outstanding Faculty Speaker Award.
2014—O.W.L. Society Award for advancing the literary culture of the University (April).
2014—Jefferson Trust Grant Award ($81,000) for Jefferson’s University—The Early Life project (with Maurie McInnis and Worthy Martin: http://juel.iath.virginia.edu/).
2010—Faculty Development Travel Grant, Lynchburg College
2009—Mednick Memorial Fellowship, Virginia Foundation for Independent Colleges.
2008—Participating Scholar, Council for Independent Colleges/Gilder Lehrman Institute for American History Slave Narratives Seminar at the Gilder Lehrman Center for Slavery, Abolition, and Resistance at Yale University (one of 30 scholars accepted nationwide).
2008—Summer Faculty Research Grant, Lynchburg College
2008—Elected Member, Board of Directors, Virginia Social Sciences Association. Elected to board 2008-2011.
2002-2003—Visiting Scholar, Carter G. Woodson Institute for Afro-American and African Studies, University of Virginia
2002—Batten Fellowship, International Center for Jefferson Studies
1997-2001—Johns Hopkins University Graduate Fellowship
1997—Phi Beta Kappa (Beta of Virginia)
1996—Mary K. Rawlings Prize, Albemarle County Historical Society
Conferences Organized
University of Virginia Universities, Slavery, Public Memory, and the Built Landscape Symposium, October 2017.
University of Virginia Universities Confronting the Legacy of Slavery Symposium, October 2014.
Virginia Social Science Association Annual Conference, 2013, ‘14, ‘15, and ‘16.