Research
Slavery, Race, Health and Medicine
Slavery, Race, Health and Medicine in the Atlantic World - especially encounters between slaveholders, physicians, physician-slaveholders and enslaved people and the continuation of racial-science and medical racism in the post-slavery era.
I am particularly interested in histories of anatomy, hospitals, and human experiments under American slavery and Jim Crow segregation how these experiments were enabled by various means.https://theconversation.com/statues-of-medical-racist-who-experimented-on-slaves-should-also-be-taken-down-82704
The Conversation reports linked above and below highlight many of the core themes and issues explored my larger project:'How black slaves were routinely sold as specimens to ambitious white doctors'
This collaborative New Orleans public radio program broadcast (Tripod: New Orleans at 300) focuses on Touro Infirmary's First Admission Book and it's role in servicing the domestic slave trade: http://www.wwno.org/post/if-these-pages-could-talk-touro-infirmarys-first-admission-book
Research Supervision
I welcome inquiries for postgraduate research (PhD and MRes) in modern American social and cultural histories, especially projects that plan to explore histories of bodies, health, medicine, power, 'race', or slavery.
The University has multi-level research links with the University of Georgia, which include opportunities for postgraduate exchange (UGA-Liverpool PG Research Fellowships), hosts the Centre for the Humanities and Social Sciences of Health, Medicine and Technology, as well as the Centre for the Study of International Slavery.
Current PhD supervisions:
Working with Chris Pearson and Christienna Fryar, I am a co-supervisor for:
Victoria Shea (ARHC PhD studentship) 'Racism and companion species relationships in the American South'
Successfully completed PhD projects:
Working with Richard Huzzey and William Ashworth, was part of the supervisory team for:
Joe Kelly, (ESRC CASE studentship) 'Supply Chains and Moral Responsibility: Slavery and Capitalism after British Emancipation' [completed 2017]
Working with Michael Tadman, was a co-supervisor for:
Andrea Livesey (ESRC PhD studentship), 'Sexual Violence in the Slaveholding Regimes of Louisiana and Texas' [completed August 2015 - Dr. Livesey is now a Senior Lecturer in History at Liverpool John Moores University]
Working with Mark Peel and Graeme Milne, I was the primary supervisor for:
Emily Trafford (AHRC PhD studentship), ‘Where the Races Meet’:Racial Framing through Live Display at the American West Coast World’s Fairs, 1894-1916' [completed December 2015 - Dr. Trafford is working for the Department of Education]
Working with Deana Heath and Celia Donert, I was the primary supervisor for:
Beth Wilson (AHRC PhD studentship) '"I ain' mad now and I know taint no use to lie": The Framing, Editing and Manipulation of Emotions in 1930s Ex-Slave Documents' [completed September 2019 - Dr. Wilson is now a Teaching Associate in the American Studies Department at the University of Nottingham]
Working with Graeme Milne and Alex Buchanan, I was the primary supervisor for:
Nicholas Fuqua ‘Mapping the Architecture of Slavery: Racial Capitalism and the Shaping of Space in Liverpool and Charleston’ [completed June 2020]
Research Awards
• Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship - Dark Medicine: racism, power and the culture of American slavery, Spring 2015
• UGA-Liverpool Seed Grant – Slavery and the 19th century Atlantic economy, Spring 2015
• U.S. Embassy London, United Kingdom Grant Program - Life and Limb: the toll of the American Civil War, Spring 2015
• School of Histories, Languages and Cultures, Discretionary Award - Life and Limb: the toll of the American Civil War, Spring 2015
• American Association for the History of Medicine Travel Award, Spring 2015
• Reynolds Associates Research Fellowship in the History of the Health Sciences, The Historical Collections Unit of the Lister Hill Library of the Health Sciences, University of
Alabama at Birmingham, October 2013
• Franklin-Liverpool Research Collaboration, University of Georgia, Spring 2013
• AHRC Interdisciplinary Seminar Series for American Studies Researchers in the North-West: Skills Development, Networking, and Dissemination
• Franklin International Scholars Program, University of Georgia, Summer 2012
• Stanley Jackson Prize, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 2012
• Franklin International Faculty Exchange, (FIFE), Spring 2011
• British Academy Overseas Conference Award, 2011
• Watson-Brown Foundation Short Term Visiting Fellowship, Institute for Southern Studies, University of South Carolina, 2009
• Midlo Center for New Orleans Studies Visiting Research Fellow, University of New Orleans, 2005
• Institute for Southern Studies Visiting Research Fellow, University of South Carolina, 1999
• Undergraduate dissertation prize, Department of American Studies, University of Hull, 1992
Research grants
Dark Medicine: racism, power and the culture of American slavery
LEVERHULME TRUST (UK)
August 2015 - August 2016
Interdisciplinary Seminar Series for American Studies Researchers in the North-West: Skills Development, Networking and Dissemination
ARTS AND HUMANITIES RESEARCH COUNCIL
January 2013 - December 2013
Research collaborations
Professor Stephen Berry
The Second Middle Passage
University of Georgia
Program to Advance Funded Collaborations in the Social Sciences
Professor Vanessa Northington Gamble
Histories and Legacies of Dr James Marion Sims
The George Washington University
2018-2019 marks 170 years since Dr. James Marion Sims first repaired obstetrical fistulae on enslaved women in Alabama. Sims, known as "The Father of American Gynecology," rose to fame - and later infamy - because of his experimental medical surgical work on these and other enslaved patients. He included a carefully framed discussion of these experiments in his post-humously published autobiography, 'The Story of My Life' (1884), which charted his career journeys - from a 'frontier doctor' to the president of the American Medical Association. Sims received a number of honors during his lifetime and following his passing, most notably these include statues located in Central Park in New York, the Alabama Statehouse grounds, and at the state capitol in Columbia, South Carolina. The lives of his enslaved experimental patients have - until recently - either been ignored or reduced to thin coverage in the annals of social and medical history. This project puts Sims in full historical and historiographical context and considers the afterlife, impact and legacy of his career