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Employment
  • Assistant Professor, Department of History, Vanderbilt University, 2016-Present
  • Assistant Professor of Law (secondary appointment), 2017-Present
  • Assistant Professor, Department of History, West Virginia University, 2012-16

Education
  • Ph.D., Department of History, University of Maryland, 2012 (Advisor: Ira Berlin)
  • M.A., Department of History, American University, 2006 (Advisor: Robert Griffith)

Affiliations 
  • Affiliated Scholar, American Bar Foundation, Chicago, IL, 2012-Present
  • Affiliated Faculty, Women's and Gender Studies, Vanderbilt University, 2016-Present
  • Faculty Associate, Center for Women’s and Gender Studies, West Virginia University, 2012-16

Publications
  • Black Litigants in the Antebellum American South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2018)
  • “William Johnson's Hypothesis: A Free Black Man and the Problem of Legal Knowledge in the
     Antebellum U.S. South, ” Law and History Review, forthcoming 2019
  • “Black Litigiousness and White Accountability: Free Blacks and the Rhetoric of Reputation in the Antebellum Natchez District,” Journal of the Civil War Era 5, no. 3 (September 2015): 372-398
  • Winner of the Robert Hetlage Prize, American Bar Foundation, 2012 

In Progress
  • "Mapping the Other Underground Railroad," digital humanities project in progress
  • "The Black Atlantic Economy," book project in progress

Web-Based Publications
Major External Fellowships and Grants 
  • National Science Foundation, Law and Social Sciences Research Grant, Principal Investigator, “Variation in Use of Courts by Legal Status and Jurisdiction,” SES 1353231, 2014-17 ($149,605)
  • Newberry Library, Lloyd Lewis Fellowship in American History and Monticello College Foundation Fellowship for Women, 2014-15 
  • American Academy of Arts and Sciences Visiting Scholar Fellowship, 2014-15, declined 
  • National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend, 2014 
  • Law and Social Science Dissertation Fellowship, American Bar Foundation/National Science Foundation/Law and Society Association, 2010-12  
  • Hurst Fellow, J. Willard Hurst Summer Institute in Legal History, Institute for Legal Studies, University of Wisconsin/American Society for Legal History, 2011
  • Mellon Dissertation Fellowship in the Humanities in Original Sources, Council on Library and Information Resources, 2009-10 
  • Littleton-Griswold Research Grant for Research in U.S. Legal History, American Historical Association, 2009 

Selected Short-term or University Fellowships and Grants
  • Mellon Faculty Fellow in the Digital Humanities, Vanderbilt University, 2017-19
  • Research Scholar Grant, Vanderbilt University, 2018
  • Oxford University, History Faculty, Visiting Scholar (summer 2016)
  • American Bar Foundation, Visiting Scholar (summers 2013-15)
  • Faculty Development Grants, West Virginia University (2012-16)
  • Senate Grant for Scholarship and Research, West Virginia University, 2013-14 
  • West Virginia Humanities Council Fellowship, 2013 
  • Eberly College of Arts and Sciences Research Mini-Grant, 2013 
  • Ann G. Wylie Dissertation Fellowship, The Graduate School, University of Maryland, 2011-12, declined 
  • Professional Development Research Grant, Department of History, University of Maryland, 2010 
  • Jacob K. Goldhaber Award, The Graduate School, University of Maryland, 2009 
  • William and Madeline Smith Research Award, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin, 2009 
  • Dissertation Prospectus Development Grant, Department of History, University of Maryland, 2008 
  • History Department Graduate Fellowship, University of Maryland, 2006-12
  • Andrew W. Mellon Graduate Student Research Award, College of Arts and Sciences, American University, 2006 

Prizes
  • Jacquelyn Dowd Hall Prize for Best Graduate Student Paper, Southern Association for Women Historians Ninth Southern Conference on Women’s History, 2012
  • Robert Hetlage Prize for Best Doctoral Fellow Article, American Bar Foundation, 2012
  • Cosmos Club Young Scholars Award and Research Grant, Cosmos Club Foundation, 2010

Book Reviews
  • Review of Jonathan M. Bryant, Dark Places of the Earth: The Voyage of the Slave Ship Antelope (New York: Norton, 2015) in The American Journal of Legal History, The American Journal of Legal History (Oct. 2016)
  • Review of Matthew Salafia, Slavery’s Borderland: Freedom and Bondage Along the Ohio River (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013) in The Journal of Southern History, 80, no. 4 (2014)
  • Review of Erica L. Ball, To Live an Antislavery Life: Personal Politics and the Antebellum Black Middle Class (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2012) in History: Reviews of New Books 42, no. 2 (2014)
  • Review of Tiya Miles, The House on Diamond Hill: A Cherokee Plantation Story (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010) in West Virginia History 7, no. 1 (2013)

Recent Papers and Invited Presentations 
  • “Lending and Borrowing Across the Color Line in the Antebellum Natchez District,” Louisiana Historical Association Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA, 2018
  • Author-Meets-Reader, Anne Twitty, Before Dred Scott: Slavery and Legal Culture in the American Confluence, 1787-1857, American Society for Legal History Annual Meeting, Las Vegas, NV, 2017
  • "Freedom Suits in Comparative Perspective: Author-Meets-Reader, Michelle McKinley, Fractional Freedoms: Slavery, Intimacy, and Legal Mobilization in Colonial Lima, 1600-1700," Law and Society Association Annual Meeting, Mexico City, 2017
  • "Black Litigants: Rethinking Race and the Law in the Antebellum American South," Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, 2017
  • "Black Litigants: Rethinking Race and the Law in the Antebellum American South," Keynote Address, Department of History, University of Maryland, College Park, 2017
  • "To Call to Account: Black Litigants in the Antebellum American South," Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, 2017
  • "Contested Narratives: Black Litigants and Storytelling in the Antebellum Southern Courtroom," American Society for Legal History Annual Meeting, Toronto, Canada, 2016
  • “Salvador v. Turner: Black Litigants, Citizenship, and the Local Courts in the Antebellum American South,” Law and Society Association Annual Meeting, New Orleans, 2016
  • "Black Litigants: Rethinking Race and the Law in the Cotton South," Jefferson Davis's America: New Perspectives on the Mid-Nineteenth-Century United States, Rice University, 2016
  • “Using the Tyrant’s Law: African Americans and Their Claims in the Antebellum South,” Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, 2016
  • “The Problems of Debt: Courts, Credit, and African Americans in the Natchez District, 1800-1860,” American Society for Legal History Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., 2015
  • ”Enslaved Women, Claims-Making, and the Local Courts in the Antebellum Natchez District,” Society for Historians of the Early American Republic, Raleigh, NC, 2015
  • “Black Litigants: Race, Property, and Personhood in the Heart of Slave Country,” Newberry Library, Chicago, IL, 2015
  • Salvador v. Turner: Black Litigants, Citizenship, and the Local Courts in the Antebellum American South," Law in Motion: Race and Property Conference, Northwestern University, 2015
  • Comment, Roundtable, Human Trafficking in Early America Conference, Library Company, Philadelphia, PA, 2015
  •  “Salvador v. Turner: Black Litigants, Citizenship, and the Local Courts in the Antebellum American South,” Slavery, Freedom, and the Remaking of American History: A Conference in Honor of Ira Berlin, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 2015
  • Comment, History of Capitalism Seminar, Newberry Library, Chicago, IL, 2015    
  • ”Black Litigants and the Rhetoric of Reputation in American South, 1800-1860” American Bar Foundation, Chicago, IL, 2015
  • “Suing Whites: Black Litigants and the Politics of Daily Life in the Antebellum Natchez District,” American Historical Association Annual Meeting, New York, NY, 2015
  • “Law’s Stories,” Fellow’s Colloquium, Newberry Library, Chicago, IL, 2014
  • “This Useless and Dangerous Portion of our Population”: Blacks Suing Whites in Antebellum Mississippi and Louisiana,” Law and Society Association Annual Meeting, Minneapolis, MN, 2014
  • “African Americans and the Politics of Reputation in the Antebellum Southern Courtroom,” Law and Society Association Annual Meeting, Boston, MA, 2013
  • ‘“Contradictions in Talk’: Free People of Color, Law, and the Politics of Reputation in the Antebellum Southern Courtroom,” American Historical Association Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA, 2013
  • ‘“Forgetful of his duties as a husband’: Married Women, Law, and the Politics of Subordination in the Antebellum Southern Household,” Southern Association for Women Historians Ninth Southern Conference on Women’s History, Fort Worth, TX, 2012 (Winner of the Jacquelyn Dowd Hall Prize, Southern Association for Women Historians)
  • ‘“Injuries peculiarly distressing and detrimental to her sex’: Married Women and the Legal Capital of Subordination in the Antebellum South,” Western Association of Women Historians annual meeting, Berkeley, CA, 2012
  • “People at Law: Subordinate Southerners, Popular Governance, and Local Legal Culture in Antebellum Mississippi and Louisiana,” Department of History, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV, 2012 
  • “Contravening Slavery, Conceding Subordination: Slaves, Freedom Suits, and the Local Courts in Antebellum Mississippi and Louisiana,” Illinois Legal History Seminar, Chicago, IL, 2012 
  • “Contravening Slavery, Conceding Subordination: Slaves, Freedom Suits, and the Local Courts in Antebellum Mississippi and Louisiana,” American Bar Foundation, Chicago, IL, 2011
  • “Free Women, Local Legal Culture, and the Politics of Subordination in the Antebellum Mississippi and Louisiana Household,” Law and Society Association annual meeting, San Francisco, CA, 2011


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