School of Languages and Area Studies (SLAS)

Profile

Erik is a Lecturer in American Studies, specialising in the History of the United States. He completed postgraduate degrees at the University of Western Ontario and Northwestern University, and his doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania.

Research Interests

His research focuses primarily on American History, with particular interests in the history of the American South, the Civil War and Reconstruction, and the broader comparative history of slavery and emancipation in the Atlantic World. His dissertation, which is currently being revised for publication, is a study of politics, power and state formation in Mississippi during the Civil War. Focusing on the ways in which white and black Mississippians attempted to understand the inner workings of a modern state, and build a personal connection to state power, the manuscript draws together the history of emancipation, American politics and American state formation.

Future research plans include a cultural history of American politics between the Revolution and the Civil War.

Published Work

His work is currently being considered as part of an edited collection on Reconstruction (to be published in 2011), and two journal articles, which will be published by 2012.

'Internal Slave Trade and Antislavery,' 'Secession Crisis and Abolitionists' and 'Segregation and Disfranchisement in the American South,' in Encyclopedia of Antislavery and Abolition, Peter Hinks and John McKivigan eds. (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2007).

'Overseers,' 'Mississippi' and 'U.S. Civil War,' in Encyclopedia of Slavery in the Americas, Edward E. Baptist ed. (New York: Facts on File, 2011).

Teaching

Erik coordinates modules on American History to 1865, Slavery and Emancipation in the Americas and a new module entitled 'Civil War America.' He also contributes to modules on contemporary American government, politics and culture.