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Kathleen S. Murphy

Kathleen S. MurphyAssistant Professor
Colonial America, Atlantic World, History of Science
E-mail: ksmurphy@calpoly.edu
Office: Bldg. 47, Room 27G
Phone: (805) 756-2839

 

EDUCATION

  • Johns Hopkins University, PhD (2007), MA (2003)

  • University of Virginia, BA in History

RESEARCH & TEACHING INTERESTS

My areas of specialization are British Colonial America, the Atlantic World, and the History of Science.  I also have a strong interest in Environmental History (especially natural disasters), the history of slavery, and religious history.  In the future, I hope to develop new courses that reflect these interests.

My current project is to revise my dissertation, “Portals of Nature: The Pursuit of Natural History in Eighteenth-Century British Plantation Societies,” into a book manuscript.  “Portals of Nature” examines the wide range of individuals – from slaves to ship captains to planters – involved in the study of the natural world of the British Caribbean and southern colonies.  By investigating the range of individuals involved in the study of the natural world and their transatlantic exchanges of specimens, seeds, and treatises, I hope to enrich our understanding of both the intellectual life of early America and of the nature of empire.

 

AWARDS, HONORS & PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES

  • National Science Foundation Grant, History of Science Society, (November 2007)

  • Donald Worster Grant, American Society for Environmental History Travel Grant (2006)

  • Charles H. Watts Memorial Fellowship, John Carter Brown Library (August-December 2005)

  • Johns Hopkins University Dean’s Teaching Fellowship (2004-2005)

  • Rockefeller Library Fellow, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (June-July 2004)

  • David Library of the American Revolution Resident Fellow (March 2004)

  • Francois Andre Michaux Fund Library Resident Fellow, American Philosophical Society (January-February 2004)

  • Virginia Historical Society Mellon Research Fellowship (December 2003)

  • National Society of Colonial Dames of America, Maryland Chapter, American History Graduate Student Scholarship (2003)

  • Phi Beta Kappa (2001)

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS & PRESENTATIONS

 

Publications:

  • “Prodigies and Portents: Providentialism in the Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake,” Maryland Historical Magazine, 97, no. 4 (Winter 2002).

  • “Judge, Jury, Magistrate & Soldier: Rethinking Law and Authority in late Eighteenth-Century Ireland,” American Journal of Legal History, 44, no. 3 (July 2000).

Presentations:

  • “Science, Prosperity, and National Advantage: John Ellis and Networks of Natural History in the British Atlantic, 1755-1776,” History of Science Society, November 5, 2007.

  • “‘From the Meanest Things, Useful Hints May Be Gathered’: Vernacular Knowledge in Eighteenth-Century British Natural History,” Folger Institute Colloquium, “Vernacular Health and Healing,” directed by Mary Fissell, March 9, 2007.

  • “’Inundations…which changed the face of Nature’: Virginia’s Great Flood of 1771 and the Politics of Disaster Relief,” American Society for Environmental History, March 31, 2006.

  • “Cultivating Patronage: Networks of Naturalists in the Eighteenth-Century British Atlantic,” John Carter Brown Library, Providence, Rhode Island, September 7, 2005.           

ORGANIZATIONAL MEMBERSHIPS

  • American Historical Association (AHA)

  • History of Science Society (HSS)

  • Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture (OIEAHC)

COURSES