Education
Biography
Emily Clark is a past Clement Chambers Benenson Professor in American Colonial History. She specializes in early American and Atlantic world history, with a focus on the French Atlantic. Her research interests include slavery, race, gender, religion and historical memory.
Interests
Research Interests
Early America and the Atlantic World, particularly the Francophone Atlantic, including Africa. I am especially interested in the ways that the history of places like Louisiana and the French Antilles can illuminate the development of racial, ethnic, and national identities in the wider Atlantic world and in other parts of colonial and early national America. Recent books include New Orleans, Louisiana, and Saint-Louis, Senegal: Mirror Cities in the Atlantic World, 1659–2000s, edited with Ibrahima Thioub and Cécile Vidal (2019) and The Strange History of the American Quadroon, which historicizes the figures of the quadroon and the "tragic mulatta," their links with Haiti and New Orleans, and the role they have played in shaping national American memory and identity.
Teaching Interests
Atlantic world history, early North America, America and the Caribbean in the Revolutionary Age, Louisiana and New Orleans, religion, gender, and the history of race and race relations. Also, archival skills and paleography and the development of web-based student projects. I especially enjoy introducing students at all levels to rich colonial and early national manuscript records housed in New Orleans archives and am a collaborator on ViaNolaVie https://www.vianolavie.org/ and New Orleans Historical https://neworleanshistorical.org/.
Contributions
Selected Publications
- New Orleans, Louisiana, and Saint-Louis, Senegal: Mirror Cities in the Atlantic World, 1659–2000s, editor with Ibrahima Thioub and Cécile Vidal. LSU Press, 2019. https://lsupress.org/books/detail/new-orleans-louisiana-and-saint-louis-senegal/
- "Slave Testimonies: The Long View," in Trevor Burnard and Sophie White, eds., Slave Narratives in French and British North America. Routledge, 2020.
- “La vallée du Mississippi, 1803-1865,” in Histoire Mondiale de l’esclavage, Claude Chevaleyre, Cécile Vidal and Benedetta Rossi, eds., 2020, Paris: Éditions du Seuil.
- "Transatlantic Currents of Orientalism," with Hilary Jones, in Emily Clark, Ibrahima Thioub and Cécile Vidal, New Orleans and Saint-Louis, Senegal: Mirror Cities in the Atlantic World, Louisiana State University Press, 2019.
- The Strange History of the American Quadroon: Free Women of Color in the Revolutionary Atlantic World. University of North Carolina Press, 2013. Read more on the Tulane News website See info on this book on the jstor.org website
- Women and Religion in the Atlantic Age, 1550-1900
ed. with Mary Laven, Ashgate, 2013.
publisher link - Masterless Mistresses: The New Orleans Ursulines and the Development of a New World Society, 1727-1834
Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture. Charlotte: University of North Carolina Press, 2007.https://www.uncpress.org/book/9780807858226/masterless-mistresses/?title_id=1098 - Voices from an Early American Convent: Marie Madeleine Hachard and the New Orleans Ursulines, 1727-1760
Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2007
https://lsupress.org/books/detail/voices-from-an-early-american-convent/ - "The Feminine Face of Afro-Catholicism in New Orleans, 1727-1852"
With Virginia M. Gould, William and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser. 59:2 (April 2002): 409-448. Winner of the A. Elizabeth Taylor Prize for Best Article on Southern Women's History, Southern Association for Women Historians, 2003.
Fellowships and Awards
- ATLAS Grant (2018)
- ATLAS Grant (2011)
Awards to Louisiana Artists and Scholars 2011, Louisiana State Board of Regents. - American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship (2010)
- Dianne Woest Fellowship in the Arts and Humanities, Historic New Orleans Collection (2010)
- Professeur Invitee, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris (2010)
- Distinguished Book Award of the History of Women Religious Conference (2010)
- Awarded June 2010 to Masterless Mistresses: The New Orleans Ursulines and the Development of a New World Society: 1727-1834
- Julia Cherry Spruill Prize of the Southern Association for Women Historians (2008)
Awarded to Masterless Mistresses: The New Orleans Ursulines and the Development of a New World Society: 1727-1834 - Kemper and Leila Williams Prize in Louisiana History (2008)
- Given by the Louisiana Historical Association and the Historic New Orleans Foundation to Masterless Mistresses: The New Orleans Ursulines and the Development of a New World Society: 1727-1834
Featured Publication
Courses
- Early New Orleans (HISU 1800)
- Atlantic World (HISU 2510)
- New Orleans and Senegal, 1400 - present (HISU 3100)
- New Orleans Free People of Color (HISU 3911)
- American Revolutions (HISU 6420)
- Atlantic World Historiography (HISU 7620)