I am a historian of nineteenth-century North America, and I teach classes on Southern history, American expansion, slavery, Texas, the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, and digital scholarship. My work has revolved around two intersecting themes: the expansion of the American South into the U.S. West and Mexico, and developing new digital methods for research, scholarship, and teaching.
My most recent book, Seeds of Empire: Cotton, Slavery, and the Transformation of the Texas Borderlands, 1800-1850, won twelve book awards, including the David J. Weber-Clements Center Prize for Best Non-Fiction Book on Southwestern America from the Western History Association.
I also experiment with applying advances in technology and computer science toward developing new methods for historical research and teaching. Some recent projects include the Digital Austin Papers (http://digitalaustinpapers.org/) and Mapping Texts (mappingtexts.org).
I am currently writing a history of the rise and fall of nineteenth-century Galveston as the key to the development of the American Southwest, while also developing several digital projects.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS:
"Mapping Texts: Examining the Effects of OCR Noise on Historical Newspaper Collections," in Estelle Bunout, Maud Ehrmann, and Frédéric Clavert, eds., Digtised Newspapers - A New El Dorado for Historians: Reflections on Tools, Methods and Epistemology (Berlin, Germany: De Gruyter Press, 2023). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110729214
These Ragged Edges: Histories of Violence Along the U.S.-Mexico Border (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2022), co-editor with Gerardo Gurza-Lavalle.
Seeds of Empire: Cotton, Slavery, and the Transformation of the Texas Borderlands, 1800-1850 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015).
"Smuggling and Violence in the Northern Borderlands of New Spain, 1810-1821," in These Ragged Edges, co-author with Alberto Barrera-Enderle.
"The Problem of Violence in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands," in These Ragged Edges, co-author with Gerardo Gurza-Lavalle.
"The Problem of Slave Flight in Civil War Texas," in Jesús F. de la Teja, ed., Lone Star Unionism, Dissent, and Resistance: Other Sides of Civil War Texas (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2016).
"The Saltillo Slavery Debates: Mexicans, Anglo-Americans, and Slavery's Future in Nineteenth-Century North America," in Bonnie Martin and James F. Brooks, eds., Linking the Histories of Slavery: North America and Its Borderlands (Santa Fe: School for Advanced Research Press, 2015).
"Stephen F. Austin's Views on Slavery in Early Texas," in This Corner of Canaan: Essays on Texas (Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2013).
"Mapping Texts: Visualizing American Historical Newspapers" and "Building New Windows into Digitized Newspapers," in Journal of Digital Humanities 1:3 (Summer 2012), first author (with Jon Christensen).
The Digital Stephen F. Austin Papers (http://www.DigitalAustinPapers.org).
Mapping Texts: Combining Text-Mining and Geo-Visualization to Unlock the Research Potential of Historical Newspapers (http://www.MappingTexts.org).
SELECTED AWARDS:
Berninghausen Prize for Outstanding Teaching, University of Bremen, Germany (for teaching done while a Fulbright Scholar), 2023.
U.S. Fulbright Scholar to Germany, University of Bremen, 2023.
Named "Texan of the Year" Finalist by The Dallas Morning News, 2021.
Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award, College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences Advisory Board, University of North Texas, 2020.
Osher Lifetime Learning Institute at UNT Provost's Faculty Award, 2023.
University Distinguished Teaching Professorship, University of North Texas, 2019.
Piper Professor Nomination Award, University of North Texas, 2019.
Set Guinness World Record for "World's Longest History Lesson," August 24-25, 2018 (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/08/27/unt-professor-lectured-26...).
Texas Old Missions and Forts Restoration Association Book Award, 2018.
David J. Weber-Clements Center Prize for Best Non-Fiction Book on Southwestern America, Western History Association, 2016.
William M. LeoGrande Prize for Best Book on U.S.-Latin American relations, Center for Latin American and Latino Studies, American University, 2016.
Ramirez Family Award for Most Significant Scholarly Book, Texas Institute of Letters, 2016.
J. H. Shelton Excellence in Teaching Award, University of North Texas, 2016.
Coral Horton Tullis Memorial Prize for Best Book on Texas History, Texas State Historical Association, 2016.
Ottis G. Lock Prize for Best Book of the Year, East Texas Historical Association, 2016.
Kate Broocks Bates Award for Historical Research, Texas State Historical Association, 2016.
Teaching Excellence Award, College of Arts and Sciences, University of North Texas, 2014.