DR. JOHN C. COOMBS

804-405-8864
jcoombs@hsc.edu

EDUCATION:

TEACHING EXPERIENCE:

OTHER PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:

Project Archaeologist, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1996-1998.
Project Archaeologist, Preservation Virginia, Jamestown Rediscovery, 1996.

BOOKS:

(with Douglas Bradburn), Early Modern Virginia: Reconsidering the Old Dominion. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2011.
The Rise of Virginia Slavery. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, (Forthcoming, 2017).

ARTICLES and ESSAYS

(with David Muraca, Philip Levy, Laura Galke, Paul Nasca, and Amy Muraca )“Small Finds, Space, and Social Context: Exploring Agency in Historical Archaeology,” Northeast Historical Archaeology 40 (June, 2011): 1-18 (Appeared in 2013).

“Mastering the Chesapeake,” Reviews in American History 41 (March, 2013):12-18.

“The Phases of Conversion: A New Chronology for the Rise of Virginia Slavery.” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser., 68 (July, 2011): 332-360.

(with Douglas Bradburn), “Provincials Abroad; Or, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Atlantic Seminar: More Collaborative Reflections on Chesapeake History,”  William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser., 68 (July, 2011): 420-426.

“Beyond the Origins Debate: Rethinking the Rise of Virginia Slavery,” in Douglas Bradburn and John C. Coombs, eds., Early Modern Virginia: Reconsidering the Old Dominion, Early American Histories, edited by Douglas Bradburn, John C. Coombs, and S. Max Edelson, Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2011, 239-278.

(with Douglas Bradburn),“Smoke and Mirrors:  Reinterpreting the Society and Economy of the Seventeenth-Century Chesapeake.” Atlantic Studies 3 (October, 2006): 131-157.

PROFESSIONAL PAPERS, LECTURES, AND CONFERENCE PANELS

“Could Bacon’s Rebellion have Possibly Succeeded?: The Interesting Story of Giles Bland and the Contingencies of History,” Invited Lecture, Annual Meeting of the Society of Colonial Wars in the District of Columbia, Chevy Chase, MD, March 2016.

“The Carters of Corotoman and Dynastic Ambition among the Early Virginia Gentry,” Invited Lecture, Foundation for Historic Christ Church, Weems, VA, March 2016.

Participant and Chair, “Studying History in the Information Age.” Panel held as part of a Symposium entitled Telling the History of Slavery: Scholarship, Museum Interpretation, and the Public, Charlottesville, VA, February, 2013.   

“Planter Oligarchy on Virginia’s Northern Neck,” Invited Lecture, Banner Lecture Series, Virginia Historical Society, Richmond, VA, October, 2012.

“The Atlantic Turn and Chesapeake History: Charting New Courses in the Study of Early Virginia and Maryland.” Invited Lecture, Historic St. Mary’s City, St. Mary’s City, MD, November, 2011.

“Mastering the Chesapeake: Lorena Walsh’s Motives of Honor, Pleasure and Profit: Plantation Management in the Colonial Chesapeake, 1607-1763.” Pre-circulated paper, Tenth Annual Conference of the Program in Early American Economy and Society, Philadelphia, PA, April, 2011.

“‘Slaves are the most proper and cheape instruments for this plantation’: Re-examining the Initial Establishment of Slavery in Virginia.”  Invited Lecture, Jamestown Settlement, Jamestown, VA, February, 2011.

(with Lorena S. Walsh),“Maximizing Exploitation: Elite Planters and the Transition from Servants to Slaves.” Delivered at the Sixteenth Annual Conference of the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, Oxford, MS, June 2010.
“The Phases of Conversion: A New Chronology for the Rise of Virginia Slavery.” Delivered at Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture conference entitled The Early Chesapeake: Reflections and Projections, Solomons and St. Mary’s City, MD, November 2009.

“Beyond the Origins Debate: Rethinking the Rise of Virginia Slavery.” Pre-circulated paper, McNeil Center for Early American Studies Spring Colloquium, Philadelphia, PA, February, 2009.

“Beyond the Origins Debate: Rethinking the Rise of Virginia Slavery.” Pre-circulated paper, Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture Fall Colloquium, Williamsburg, VA, November, 2008.

Participant, Roundtable Discussion on New Trends in Colonial Virginia History, Annual Meeting of the Southern Historical Association, Richmond VA, October 2007.

“Generations, Revolutions, and the Problem of Evidence: Toward a Processual Understanding of Slavery’s Rise in Virginia.” Pre-circulated paper, symposium entitled Early Modern Virginia: New Thoughts on the Old Dominion, Charlottesville, VA, August, 2007.

(with Philip Levy and David Muraca ),“The Death of the Chesapeake?: Rethinking Interpretive Scale in the Archaeological Study of Early Virginia and Maryland.” Delivered at the annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology, Williamsburg, VA, January, 2007.

“One for the Negro Slaves”: Houses, Homelots, and the Development of Slavery in Early Colonial Virginia.” Delivered at the annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology, Williamsburg, VA, January, 2007.

(with J. Elliot Russo), “The Chesapeake without Tobacco?: Slavery and Peripheral Economies in Early Maryland and Virginia.” Delivered at the annual meeting of the Social Science History Association.  Minneapolis, MN, November, 2006.

“Seventeenth-Century Chesapeake-West Indian Exchange and the Coastwise Trade in Slaves,” Pre-circulated paper, Tenth Anniversary Conference of the Harvard University International Seminar on the History of the Atlantic World, 1500-1825, Cambridge, MA, August 2005.

(with Philip Levy and David Muraca ),“Notions of Comfort in the Early Colonial Chesapeake.” Delivered at the annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology, York, UK, January, 2005.

(with Philip Levy),”To Build in Brick: Seventeenth-Century Brick Architecture and Colonial Chesapeake Society, A Reappraisal.” Delivered at the Tenth Annual Conference of the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, Northampton, MA, June 2004.

“‘The Substantial Planters Have of Those Negro Slaves’: The Transformation of Elite Labor Forces and the Development of Slave Society in Early Colonial Virginia.” Pre-circulated paper, Harvard University International Seminar on the History of the Atlantic World, 1500-1825, Cambridge, UK, March 2004.

(with Philip Levy and David Muraca),“Relational Archaeology: The Search for Social Relationships Using Context, Scale, and Space in Middle Plantation Virginia.” Delivered at the Mid-Atlantic Archaeology Conference, Virginia Beach, VA, March, 2003.

“Read All About It: Popular Media and Public Perceptions of Archaeology.” Delivered at the annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology, Providence, RI, January, 2003.

(with Philip Levy and David Muraca),“Time, Space, and Form: Reconstructing Richneck Plantation.” Delivered at the Mid-Atlantic Archaeology Conference, Virginia Beach, VA, March, 2002.

(with Philip Levy and David Muraca),“Masters, Servants, Slaves and Space: Exploring the Social Structure of Early Colonial Virginia.” Delivered at the annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology, Mobile, AL, January, 2002.

“More Than a Simple Misunderstanding: The Gap Between Historical and Archaeological Narratives of the Colonial Chesapeake.” Delivered at the annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology, Mobile, AL, January, 2002.

(with Philip Levy and David Muraca),“Rebuilding Seventeenth-Century Chesapeake Architecture—Brick by Brick.” Delivered at the annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology, Quebec, Canada, January, 2000.

DEPARTMENT and COLLEGE SERVICE

Summer College participation and Library Project

Member, Advisory Board, Atkinson Museum, Hampden-Sydney, VA, 2014-Pres.

Hampden-Sydney College, History Department Chair, 2012-2016.

Hampden-Sydney College, Assessment Committee, 2009-2012.

Hampden-Sydney College, Presidential Inauguration Committee, 2010-2011.

Hampden-Sydney College, Academic Affairs Committee, 2008-2009, 2015-Pres.

Hampden-Sydney College, Freshman Advisor, 2008-2009, 2010-2011, 2012-2013.

Florida International University, History Department Webmaster, 2005-2007.

Florida International University, History Department Advisory Committee, 2005-2006.

Florida International University, African-American Search Committee, 2005-2006.

Florida International University, Library Committee, 2003-2004.

OTHER SERVICE

Member, Editorial Advisory Board, Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 2012-2015.

Co-editor, Early American Histories, University of Virginia Press, 2011-Pres.

Program Committee Co-Chair, Telling the History of Slavery: Scholarship, Museum Interpretation, and the Public, Symposium sponsored by Monticello, Thomas Jefferson Foundation with the participation of Historic Morven and the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, February 22-23, 2013.   

Program Committee Co-Chair, The Early Chesapeake: Reflecting Back, Projecting Forward, Conference sponsored by the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, St. Mary’s City, Maryland, November 19–21, 2009.

Project Advisor, National Endowment for the Humanities Comparative Archaeological Study of Colonial Chesapeake Culture, April 2002-2006.

FELLOWSHIPS and GRANTS

Hampden-Sydney College, Summer Research Award, 2008, 2011, 2014, 2015, 2016.

(with Douglas Bradburn),Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, Open Grant in support of two-day  symposium entitled Early Modern Virginia: New Thoughts on the Old Dominion, August 2007.

Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Rockefeller Library Research Fellowship, 2007.

Florida International University Arts and Sciences Summer Research Award, 2004.

College of William and Mary, Lyon G. Tyler Research Grant, 2002.

Fellow, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Seminar in Theory and Practice, 1998.

Jamestowne Society Fellow, 1998.

College of William and Mary Minor Research Grant, 1997, 1998.

Jamestown/Yorktown Foundation Fellow, 1995-96.