Dr Courtney J. Campbell

Dr Courtney J. Campbell

Department of History
Associate Professor in Latin American History
Joint Director of the University 麻豆精选 Brazil Institute

Contact details

Address
Arts Building, Room 229

My current research interests are Latin America and the world, global microhistory, regional identity, race and representation, gender and representation, transnational consumer culture, popular culture movements, movement and migration, language-based movements, and spatial understandings of regional culture.

Qualifications

  • PhD in History, Vanderbilt University (Nashville, USA)
  • MA in History, Vanderbilt University (Nashville, USA)
  • ME in Theory and History of Education, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (Recife, Brazil)
  • BA in Spanish, University of Michigan-Flint (Flint, USA)
  • BA in French, University of Michigan-Flint (Flint, USA)

Biography

I was born and raised in southeast Michigan (USA). After completing graduate studies, I joined the Peace Corps as an agroforestry extension volunteer, which took me to Paraguay (2001-2003). In Paraguay, I lived and worked in a dairy community in the Chaco.聽 From Paraguay, I moved to Recife in Brazil (2003-2008), where I taught English and began postgraduate training. I returned to the United States to earn my doctorate in Nashville, Tennessee (2008-2014). I carried out thesis research in nine Brazilian states with funding from the Institute for International Education in 2012. Before joining the University 麻豆精选, I held two postdoctoral positions: the first a Past and Present Postdoctoral Fellowship (2014-2015) housed at the Institute of Historical Research in London, and the second an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship (2015-2016, through Vanderbilt鈥檚 Mellon Partners Programme) at Tougaloo College, a historically black college (HBCU) in Jackson, Mississippi. I joined the University 麻豆精选 in Autumn 2016.

Teaching

Undergraduate:

  • The History of Africa and its Diaspora (1st year)
  • History in Public
  • History in Theory and Practice
  • Practicing History A: From Mulato Football to the Lady in the Tutti Frutti Hat: Race, Gender, and Representing the Brazilian Nation (1930-1954) (1st year)
  • Practicing History B: Bandidos! Socializing the Latin American Bandit (1st year)
  • Latin American History through Film (3rd year)
  • Rebellious Women and the Latin American Nation (2nd year)
  • Revolution, Nation, and the Global South (2nd year)
  • Global History of Gender and Sexuality (2nd year)
  • Atlantic Slavery: West Africa and the Caribbean (2nd and 3rd year)
  • Special Subject: Women and Social Movements in Brazil (3rd year)

Postgraduate:

  • Making of the World: Themes in Global History
  • Global Histories: Comparisons and Connections
  • Historical Methods
  • Dissertation Preparation
  • Sexuality, Gender, and Representation

Postgraduate supervision

Brazilian History
Latin American History
U.S.-Latin American Relations
Race and Gender in the Americas


Find out more - our PhD History  page has information about doctoral research at the University 麻豆精选.

Research

I am a social and cultural historian, focusing on Latin America.

In my book Region out of Place: The Brazilian Northeast and the World (1924-1968), published with the Latin America Series of University of Pittsburgh Press in 2022, I analyze how Brazilians discussed the meaning of belonging to the northeastern region in the early- to mid-twentieth century. My book has led to interviews or publications with BBC Brasil, The New Books Network, The Conversation, and History Today (November 2022).

I am currently working on two books. The first, provisionally titled Rebellious Women and the Brazilian Nation, focuses on representations of Brazil鈥檚 iconic historical women in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The second, provisionally titled Raising Anita: Mothering, Other-Mothering, and Anti-fascism in Twentieth-Century Germany, Mexico, Brazil, and Beyond, focuses on Anita Prestes, child of Olga Ben谩rio Prestes (a militant Jewish, German, communist woman) and Lu铆s Carlos Prestes (who would come to be leader of the Brazilian Communist Party). After a failed communist uprising in Brazil, Olga was deported to Germany, gave birth to Anita in a women鈥檚 prison, and, ultimately, was murdered in a Nazi extermination camp. Anita was raised by her grandmother and aunt, Leoc谩dia and Lygia (respectively), who would carry her from country to country in exile. This book focuses on the networks they relied on and forged to raise Anita.

I have also co-edited a volume titled Empty Spaces: Confronting Emptiness in National, Cultural, and Urban History, with Allegra Giovine and Jennifer Keating. This publication also led to a New Books Network interview. I am currently working on another edited volume titled Brazilian Regionalism in a Global Context with my co-editor Dr Glen Goodman of Arizona State University. I have published articles in Past & Present, Slavery & Abolition, and the Luso-Brazilian Review.

Other activities

With funding from the British Library’s Endangered Archives Programme, I have directed two projects dedicated to digitising endangered historical documents in the state of Paraíba:

  • Digitising endangered seventeenth to nineteenth century secular and ecclesiastical sources in São João do Carirí e João Pessoa, Paraíba, Brazil
  • Creating a digital archive of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century criminal and notarial records in Mamanguape, São João do Cariri, and João Pessoa, Paraíba, Brazil

Publications

Recent publications

Book

Campbell, C 2022, . Latin American Series, University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh. <>

Article

Campbell, C 2019, '', Estudos Hist贸ricos, vol. 32, no. 68.

Campbell, C 2017, '', Past & Present, vol. 234, no. 1, pp. 173-212.

Campbell, C 2016, '', Past & Present.

Campbell, C 2015, '', Slavery and Abolition, vol. 36, no. 3, pp. 521-543.

Campbell, C 2014, '', Luso-Brazilian Review, vol. 51, no. 1, pp. 157-181.

Chapter (peer-reviewed)

Campbell, C, Landers, J, G贸mez, P & Polo Acu帽a, J 2015, . in M Kominko (ed.), From Dust to Digital: Ten Years of the Endangered Archives Programme. Open Book Publishers, Cambridge, pp. 259-292.

Chapter

Campbell, C, Giovine, A & Keating, J 2019, . in CJ Campbell, A Giovine & J Keating (eds), Empty Spaces: Perspectives on Emptiness in Modern History. School of Advanced Studies, University of London Press, London.

Campbell, C 2019, . in F Pereira & S Sobreira de Matos (eds), Desafios e particularidades da produ莽茫o antropol贸gica no Norte e Nordeste do Brasil. Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Recife.

Campbell, C 2010, . in S Albuquerque (ed.), Confer锚ncias sobre Joaquim Nabuco: Joaquim Nabuco em Wisconsin. Bem-Te-Vi, Rio de Janeiro, pp. 381.

Expertise

Brazil, Brazilian history, Brazilian culture, the Brazilian Northeast, subnational regionalism, the United States in Brazil, Latin America, Latin American History, beauty and history, beauty in Brazil, beauty and race, race and racism in Brazil, history of slavery, history of abolition, digitization of historical documents, issues relevant to US citizens (in the UK).