Title

Professor of History

Areas of Expertise

African-American History (Particularly Slavery)
Caribbean Region (Economics, History and Politics)
Central America (Economics, History and Politics)
Latin American History
Western/Southern African and Rwandan History

Research Interests

Current Projects: The Ethnography and Pornography of Slavery:  Dr. Jonathan Troup’s Journal of Dominica, 1789-1791 and “'Vile and Despicable Employment': The Enslavement of Carmelite” (a biographical study of an enslaved woman in New Orleans)

Professional Experience

Director, Revolution to Republic:  Philadelphia’s Place in Early America, a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Landmarks in American History and Culture Workshop for Community College Faculty, 2008, 2010

Editor 2004-09, Journal of the Early Republic (JER)

In addition to editing the JER, he has served on the executive committee of the Association of Caribbean Historians, the editorial board of Slavery & Abolition, and the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic (SHEAR) and McNeil Center for Early American Studies (MCEAS) at the University of Pennsylvania executive boards.

Lecturer, Cunard Cruises, Silversea Cruises and Seabourn Cruises, 2004-present

Recent Publications

• Between Slavery and Freedom: Special Magistrate John Anderson’s Journal of St. Vincent during the Apprenticeship
• The Economy and Material Culture of Slaves: Goods and Chattels on the Sugar Plantations of Jamaica and Louisiana

Websites

• John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation: Fellowships to Assist Research and Artistic Creation
• Lecture Video: Slavery and Emancipation in the Caribbean: Professor Roderick McDonald