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SCHOOL OF LIBERAL ARTS » Department of History
Department of History Home » People » Faculty & Staff by Name » Randy J. Sparks
Randy J. Sparks
Professor
rsparks1@tulane.edu
504-862-8627
Hebert 118

Education

Ph.D., Rice, 1988

Biography

Teaching Interest

I regularly teach courses in the history of the Old and New South. I also offer courses in the history of American Religion, the impact of Hurricane Katrina, and Southern Autobiography.

Selected Publications

Where the Negroes Are Masters
An African Port in the Era of the Slave Trade
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2014

Paths to Freedom: Manumission in the Atlantic World
Edited with Rosemary Brana-Shute
Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2009

The Two Princes of Calabar: An Eighteenth-Century Atlantic Odyssey
German translation with Rogner & Bernhard, 2004
French translations with Editions Les Persides 2007
Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 2004

Memory and Identity: Minority Survival Among the Huguenots in France and the Atlantic Diaspora
Edited with Bertrand Van Ruymbeke
Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2003

Religion in Mississippi
Jackson: University Press of Mississippi for the Heritage of Mississippi Series, 2001

Money, Trade, and Power: The Evolution of Colonial South Carolina's Plantation Society
Edited with Jack P. Greene and Rosemary Brana-Shte
Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2001

On Jordan's Stormy Banks: Evangelical Religion in Mississippi, 1773-1876
Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1994

Research

My research revolves around three broad areas of interest. Southern History, American Religious History and the Atlantic World. My research in Southern history has focused on race and religion, particularly the history of biracial worship in the Old South. My first two books, On Jordan's Stormy Banks and Religion in Mississippi, explored the interplay between race and religion in the South. My interest in Atlantic history has also focused on race and/or religion. The Two Princes of Calabar explores the slave trade and early English Methodism through biography. My co-edited volumes of essays in Atlantic history also reflect my interest in race and religion. Currently, I am co-editing a volume of essays on the impact of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans with Romain Huret from the University of Lyon. My current book-length project focuses on the United States' involvement in the illegal salve trade of the 19th Century.