About My Work
My interests focus on the long eighteenth-century Atlantic world. My dissertation research explores the development and use of public space in colonial port cities, particularly taverns and markets in Charleston, South Carolina. Towards this end, I explore social behavior and physical space from an interdisciplinary lens. My program draws heavily on the disciplines of history and archaeology. An analysis of primary sources, material culture, and archaeological evidence can help us understand the activities colonists were engaged in throughout Charleston’s public spaces. These activities help us understand the values, habits, and agency enacted by various groups and individuals from diverse social and ethnic backgrounds. Further, a spatial and temporal analysis of the development of public space exemplified through taverns and markets helps us understand the political and social motives of the multi-ethnic urban population of colonial Charleston. This research will provide insight into how colonists used public space to define themselves and their relationships with others in colonial urban environments.
Broadly speaking my interests span the early modern period. They include uses of space; identity; cross-cultural interactions; counter cultures; class; ephemera and print culture; material culture; revolutions; trade; consumer markets and consumption; crime; social and leisure life; networks in the transfer of "knowledge" or ideas, people, and goods and objects.
Professional Associations
Society of Historical Archaeology
International Association for the Study of Environment, Space, and Place