My research is primarily concerned with the ways in which discourses of gender, race and sexuality were articulated and interacted in the context of nineteenth century America

My Ph.D. thesis was completed in September 2003 at the University of Warwick, where I also spent my undergraduate years. It explored the emotional lives of the enslaved in antebellum North Carolina, seeking to uncover the realities of their courting relationships and courtship experiences. The monograph based on my PhD thesis, Courtship and Love among the Enslaved in North Carolina, was published in 2007 with the University Press of Mississippi. I also published an co-edited collection concerning the era of Reconstruction with ABC Clio in 2008 as part of their “Perspectives in American History Series”. My most recent research project concerns transitional gender identity in nineteenth century America, focusing on Sarah Hicks Williams, a middle class woman born and raised in New Hartford, New York, who, in 1853, married Benjamin Williams, a physician and slaveholder from Greene County, North Carolina. Sarah relocated to Benjamin’s plantation following their honeymoon The monograph that I am writing in relation to this research, Gender and Identity in Antebellum America: From Northern Woman to Plantation Mistress, to be published with Palgrave Macmillan concerns Sarah’s experiences of transition: from North to South; “true woman” to “southern lady”; single young woman to wife and mother. It is a story of the shifting nature of antebellum identity, yet calls into question the regional differences that were said to have existed between gender ideals of the “free North” and the “slave South” in this era. As a consequence of this research I have submitted a bid to the British Academy to host an exhibition of a sample of the archival collection (housed at the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) with school workshops and a website factored in. Following this project I am in the early stages of planning a project in relation to trauma and enslaved memories, focussing on formerly enslaved men. I intend to submit a major funding bid for this project which will include PhD studentships and a postdoctoral research assistance post.