Department of History, Tufts University
Upper Campus Road, East Hall, Medford, MA 02155
EDUCATION:
Ph.D. (History), University of Maryland, College Park, 1994
B.A. (History), The Colorado College, 1985
ACADEMIC POSITIONS:
Professor (2016-Present)
Tufts University
Assistant/Associate/Full Professor (1999-2016)
SUNY Plattsburgh
Assistant Professor (1995-1999)
Central Washington University
VISITING APPOINTMENTS:
IQS/ETRC Scholar-in-Residence, Bishop’s University
Sherbrooke, Québec 2016 (March)
Visiting Professor, Department of History, Universität Tübingen, Fritz Thyssen Foundation
Organization of American Historians Germany Residency Program 2015 (summer term)
Patrick Henry Writer in Residence, CV Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience
Washington College 2014-2015
Carson Fellow, Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society,
Ludwig Maximilians Universität, Munich 2012 (six months)
Scholar in Residence, Virginia Foundation for the Humanities 2001 (semester)
Visiting Assistant Professor, Mount Saint Mary’s College 1994-1995
GRANTS & AWARDS (selected):
SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship, 2016
OAH Binkley Stephenson Award for the year’s best article in the Journal of American History, 2015
Mellon Research Fellowship, Virginia Historical Society, 2011, 2005, 2003, 2001, 2000
Scholar in Residence, Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, 2010 (summer)
Gilder Lehrman Fellowship, Colonial Williamsburg, 2009
Faculty Development Grant, Canadian Embassy to the U.S., 2008
Presidential Research Award, SUNY Plattsburgh, 2008, 2001
Fellow, Institute for Ethics in Public Life, SUNY Plattsburgh, 2003 (semester)
Larry Lowther Distinguished Service Award, National History Day in Washington State, 1999
Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship, Huntington Library, 1998
Jacob K. Javits Fellowship, U.S. Dept. of Education, 1988-1992
University Fellowship, University of Maryland, 1987-1988
PUBLICATIONS:
Works in Progress
Founding Massacres: Violence, Ambition, and the Birth of Virginia. In progress.
The New History of the American South (University of North Carolina Press). Team-authored volume with W. Fitzhugh Brundage, et al. Primary responsibility for the 17th century. Complete draft submitted; anticipated publication date 2018.
Native America: An Environmental History. Under contract to Cambridge University Press, Studies in Environment and History; delivery date December 2018.
Books
Tales from a Revolution: Bacon’s Rebellion and the Transformation of Early America (Oxford University Press, 2012; Audio and College Paperback editions, 2013). History Book Club and BOMC2 selection.
Nature and History in the Potomac Country: From Hunter-Gatherers to the Age of Jefferson (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009; pb edition 2016).
Articles and Book Chapters
“Rethinking ‘The American Paradox’: Bacon’s Rebellion, Indians, and the U.S. History Survey.” In Susan Sleeper Smith, Nancy Shoemaker, Jean O’Brien, Juliana Barr, and Scott Stevens, eds., Why You Can’t Teach U.S. History Without American Indians (University of North Carolina Press, 2015).
“Bacon’s Rebellion in Indian Country.” Journal of American History (2014). Winner of the Binkley-Stephenson Award for the year’s best article in the JAH.
“Beyond the ‘Ecological Indian’ and the ‘Columbian Exchange’: Contemporary Writing on Native Americans and the Environment.” History Compass (2014).
“Into the Gap: Ethnohistorians, Environmental History, and the Native South.” Native South (2011).
“Escape from Tsenacommacah: Chesapeake Algonquians and the Powhatan Menace,” in Peter Mancall, ed., The Atlantic World and Virginia (University of North Carolina Press for the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, 2007).
“Introduction,” in Voices from Colonial America: Maryland, 1634-1776, by Robin Doak (National Geographic, 2007). Served as historical consultant for the volume.
“Evangelicals and the Invention of Community in Western Maryland.” Maryland Historical Magazine (2006).
“Laying Claim to Elizabeth Shoemaker: Family Violence on Baltimore’s Waterfront, 1808-1812.” In Christine Daniels, ed., Over the Threshold: Domestic Violence in Early America (Routledge, 1999). Reprinted in the Maryland Historical Magazine, 2000.
“‘This Province, so meanly and Thinly Inhabited’: Labor, Race, and Penal Practices in Maryland, 1681-1837.” Journal of the Early Republic (1999).
“The Three Faces of Crime and Punishment in a Slave Society: An Ambiguous Black ‘Insurrection’ in Early Maryland.” Southern Studies (1998).
“The Criminal Trial Before and After the Lawyers: Authority, Law, and Culture in Maryland Jury Trials, 1681-1860.” American Journal of Legal History (1996).
“Old Appalachia’s Path to Interdependency: Economic Development and the Creation of Community in Frederick County, Maryland, 1730-1837.” Appalachian Journal (1995).
“Law as Litigation: An Agenda for Research.” William & Mary Quarterly (January 1993). Coauthored with James Henretta.
Recent Book Reviews (selected)
Ethnic Cleansing and the Indian: The Crime that Should Haunt America, by Gary Clayton Anderson, Journal of American Ethnic History (forthcoming).
Power Lines: Phoenix and the Making of the Modern Southwest, by Andrew Needham, AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples (2015).
The Grandees of Government: The Origins and Persistence of Undemocratic Politics in Virginia, by Brent Tarter, Journal of Southern History (2015).
The Empire Reformed: English America in the Age of the Glorious Revolution, by Owen Stanwood, William & Mary Quarterly (Winter 2014).
Papers And Presentations (selected/recent)
“The Nature of Sovereignty: Québec, the Cree, and the James Bay Project in a Hemispheric Perspective.” McGill University, April 2016.
“The Varieties of Powhatan Warfare, 1580-1611.” Panel on “Native American Societies and War / Native American Societies at War.” Society for Military History, Ottawa, April 2016.
“‘They didn’t even speak French!’: Indigenous People, the Environment, and the Problem of Sovereignty in Modern Quebec.” Bridgewater State University, Mass., March 2016.
“War and Society in the Jamestown Era: Atlantic and Continental Perspectives.” Keynote address, The Virginia Forum. Jamestown, VA, March 2016.
“D.C., BCE: The Long Arc of a Region’s History.” Panel entitled “Hidden Ethnohistories of Washington, D.C.” Annual meeting of the American Society for Ethnohistory, Las Vegas, November 2015.
“Beyond the Bi-Racial South” (Roundtable discussion with Scott Nelson, Martha Jones, Emily Clark, and Melinda Lowery). Annual meeting of the Southern Historical Association, Atlanta, November 2014.
“Teaching Ancient America” (Roundtable discussion with James Carson, Robbie Ethridge, Matthew Jennings, and Kenneth Sassaman). Annual meeting of the Organization of American Historians, Atlanta, April 2014.
“Watering Early America: Rethinking Rivers, Coasts, and Clouds, 1500-1850” (Roundtable discussion with Christine DeLucia, John Gillis, Karen Kupperman, Derek Nelson, and Christopher Pastore). Annual meeting of the American Society for Environmental History, San Francisco, March 2014.
“Playmate, Hostage, Diplomat, Spy: Children and Warfare in Pocahontas’s World.” The World of Pocahontas Lecture Series, Colonial Williamsburg, October 2013.
“Rethinking ‘The American Paradox’: Bacon’s Rebellion and the U.S. History Survey.” Why You Can’t Teach U.S. History Without American Indians, Newberry Library, Chicago, May 2013.
“Tales from a Revolution: Bacon’s Rebellion and the Transformation of Early America.” Guy F. Goodfellow Memorial Lecture, Washington College, Maryland, April 2013.
“Tales from a Revolution: Bacon’s Rebellion and the Transformation of Early America.” Virginia Festival of the Book, Charlottesville, Virginia, March 2013.
“Indigenous Peoples, Colonialism, and the Environment in Modern North America.” Imperialism, Narrative, and the Environment, Rachel Carson Center, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, October 2012.
“Writing Native American Environmental History.” Lunchtime Colloquium Series, Rachel Carson Center, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, July 2012.
COURSES (selected):
- Early America and the Atlantic World
- Topics in First Nations/Native American Studies
- American Environmental History
