Tessa Murphy
Assistant Professor, History
Degree
Ph.D., University of Chicago, 2016
Specialties
The Atlantic World; the early Americas in comparative perspective; the colonial Caribbean; slavery and race; the Age of Revolutions.
Courses
HST 300: The Atlantic World: Rum, Smoke, & Steel
HST 300: Africans in the Early Americas
HST 300: Divided Loyalties: Empire & Allegiance in
Early America
HST 300: Unfreedom: Comparative Slavery in the Early
Americas
HST 302: Early America
HST 303: The Age of the American Revolution
Biography
Tessa Murphy’s research and teaching
interests lie in the history of the colonial Americas, broadly defined to
include the Caribbean, Central and South America, and what are now Canada and
the United States. Her research has been supported by a number of institutions,
including the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada,
France’s Institut National d’Études Démographiques, the John Carter Brown
Library, the David Library of the American Revolution, and the Clements Library.
This support has allowed her to pursue work on her current book project,
entitled The Creole Archipelago: Race and
Colonization in the Southern Caribbean, c. 1660-1797. The booktraces British and French attempts to
assimilate or remake colonial societies that evolved beyond the boundaries of
European empire in the early modern Americas. She offers courses on the
colonial, revolutionary, and early republican Americas; the Atlantic World; and
comparative slavery and emancipation.
Research Grants and Awards
2016 David Library of the American
Revolution Fellowship, Washington Crossing, PA
2015 John Carter Brown Library Associates Fellowship,
Providence, R.I
2014-2015 Quinn Foundation dissertation-year
fellowship
2012-2013 Pre-doctoral fellowship, Institut
National d’Études Démographiques, Paris
2011-2012 Social
Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Doctoral Award
2012 Special Collections Research
Fellowship, Hamilton College Library, Clinton, NY
2010-2013 Selected participant in Partner
University Funded colloquium, “Migration, Material Culture, and Memory: Constructing
Community in Mobile Worlds,” University of Paris X- Nanterre
Recent Invited Lectures
Apr. 2017 “The Colony of a Colony? The establishment of
plantations in Dominica, c. 1730-1763.” Society for American Archaeology, Vancouver, Canada.
Jan. 2017 “Slave Societies Outside of Empire: The Neutral Islands of
the Caribbean, 1700-1762” American
Historical Association, Denver, CO.
Oct. 2016 “Laboring ‘beyond the line:’ Slavery in the Neutral
Islands of the Southern Caribbean c. 1700-1762” Region and Nation in American Histories of Race and Slavery,
sponsored by the Omohundro Institute for Early American History & Culture,
Mount Vernon, VA
Mar. 2016 “The Limits of the French Revolution: Fedon’s Rebellion,
Grenada, 1795-1796.” Political Economy in
the Age of Enlightenment and Revolution: Interdisciplinary Approaches.
Neubauer Collegium, Chicago, IL.
Nov. 2015 “The Treaty of Paris and the Transformation of Port Towns in
the Lesser Antilles, 1763-1773.” Port Cities in the Early Modern World, 1500-1800, co-sponsored by
the McNeil Center for Early American Studies and Temple University.
Nov. 2015 “An Indigenous Archipelago: Kalinagos and Europeans in the
Lesser Antilles, c. 1600-1700.” John
Carter Brown Library, Providence, RI.
June 2015 “‘A Banditti of all nations:’ Trade in the Southern
Caribbean during the American War of Independence.” Omohundro Institute of Early American
History and Culture - Society of Early Americanists Joint Conference,
Chicago.