Susan Thorne | Scholars@Duke

Susan Thorne
Associate Professor Emerita of History

My research and teaching interests include the social history of modern Britain, the imperial history of modern Europe, and the ideological intersections of race, crime, and urban poverty in Anglo-American political culture. Congregational missions and the making of an imperial culture in nineteenth-century England (Stanford, 1999) explored the influence of evangelical missionary organizations on Victorian perceptions of colonized people as well as and in relation to the metropolitan poor. My research interests have since taken a more domestic turn. I am working on a local history of a south London parish that figures prominently in the biographical experience and publications of Charles Dickens, perhaps the most influential chronicler of the London poor. A second project is taking me further afield from my scholarly training and closer to home: my family's history and the genealogy of white supremacy in Clarendon County, SC.

Office Hours

Wednesdays 1- 4 and by welcome appointment

Current Appointments & Affiliations

Associate Professor Emerita of History, History, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2022

Contact Information

336 Classroom Building, 1356 Campus Drive, Durham, NC 27705
PO Box 90719, Durham, NC 27708-0719
sthorne@duke.edu (919) 593-2810
http://fds.duke.edu/db/aas/history/faculty/sthorne

Background
Education, Training, & Certifications
- Ph.D., University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 1990
- M.A., University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 1984
- B.A., University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill 1981
Previous Appointments & Affiliations
- Associate Professor of History, History, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 1998 - 2022
- Associate Chair, Department of History, History, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2006 - 2009
- Assistant Professor, History, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 1991 - 1996
Recognition
In the News
- APR 27, 2015
  
  Trinity Honors Excellence in Teaching, Advising and Service
- AUG 28, 2013 Durham Herald-Sun
  
  Duke faculty, students speak out about Moral Monday participation
Awards & Honors
- Howard D. Johnson Teaching Award. Trinity College of Arts and Sciences. 2015
Expertise
Subject Headings
Global Scholarship
- Expertise
  - United Kingdom (Country)
- Research
  - South Carolina (State or Province)
  - United Kingdom (Country)
- Teaching
  - Europe (Continent)
  - Ireland (Country)
Publications & Artistic Works
Selected Publications
- Books
  - Thorne, S. Congregational Missions and the Making of an imperial Culture in 19th Century England. Stanford University Press, 1999.
- Academic Articles
  - Thorne, Susan. “Steven S. Maughan. Mighty England Do Good: Culture, Faith, Empire, and World in the Foreign Missions of the Church of England, 1850–1915. Studies in the History of Christian Missions. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2014. Pp. 527. $45.00 (paper).” Journal of British Studies 55, no. 1 (January 2016): 209–10. https://doi.org/10.1017/jbr.2015.184.
    Full Text Open Access Copy
  - Thorne, S. “Capitalism and Slavery Compensation.” Small Axe 16, no. 1 37 (March 2012): 154–67. https://doi.org/10.1215/07990537-1548155.
    Full Text Link to Item
  - Thorne, S. “Review Essay: Catherine Hall, Civilising Subjects: Metropole and Colony in the English Imagination 1830-1867.” Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 6, no. 1 (2005).
    Link to Item
  - Mayfield, David, Susan Thorne, and Ann Arbor. “Reply to ’The Poverty of Protest’ and ’The Imaginary Discontents’.” Social History 18 (May 1993): 219–33.
  - Mayfield, David, and Susan Thorne. “Social History and Its Discontents: Gareth Stedman Jones and the Politics of Language.” Social History 17 (May 1992): 165–88.
- Book Sections
  - Thorne, S. “Religion and empire at home.” In At Home with the Empire: Metropolitan Culture and the Imperial World, 143–65, 2006. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511802263.007.
    Full Text
  - Thorne, S. “Missionary Imperial Feminism.” In Gendered Missions: Women and Men in Missionary Discourse and Practice, edited by Mary Taylor Huber and Nancy C. Lutkehaus. University of Michigan Press, 1999.
  - Thorne, S. “’The Conversion of Englishmen and the Conversion of the World Inseparable’: Missionary Imperialism and the Language of Class, 1750-1850.” In Tensions of Empire: Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World, edited by Frederick Cooper and Ann Laura Stoler. University of California Press, 1997.
- Other Articles
  - Thorne, S. “Southern Discomfort, in The Poetics of the Sacred and the Politics of Knowledge: Six Geographies of Encounter, ed. Teresa Berger.” Edited by T. Berger. Worlds and Knowledges Otherwise. Worlds and Knowledges Otherwise, Vol. 1, Dossier 2, April 1, 2006.
  - THORNE, S. “CLASS ANALYSIS, POPULAR POLITICS AND THE LINGUISTIC TURN IN 19TH-CENTURY ENGLISH HISTORY.” Edited by G. C. Bond and J. W. Rooney. Consortium on Revolutionary Europe 1750 1850, Proceedings, 1992. CONSORTIUM REVOLUTIONARY EUROPE, January 1, 1993.
    Link to Item
- Book Reviews
  - Thorne, Susan. “Feminism and empire: women activists in imperial Britain, 1790–1865 - By Clare Midgley. London and New York: Routledge, 2007. Pp. x + 206. Hardback £70.00, ISBN 978-0-415-25014-6; paperback £19.99, ISBN 978-0-415-25015-3.” Journal of Global History. Cambridge University Press (CUP), November 2011. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1740022811000490.
    Full Text
  - Thorne, S. “Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History. By Frederick Cooper.” The European Legacy. Taylor and Francis, April 2007.
    Open Access Copy
  - Thorne, S. “Imperial Pieties.” History Workshop Journal. Oxford University Press, January 1, 2007. https://doi.org/10.1093/hwj/dbm016.
    Full Text Open Access Copy
  - Thorne, S. “Imperial fault lines: Christianity and colonial power in India, 1818-1940.” Victorian Studies, 2005.
    Link to Item
  - Thorne, Susan. “Review of The Changing Shape of English Nonconformity, 1825-1925 by Dale A. Johnson.” The American Historical Review, April 2001. https://doi.org/10.2307/2651745.
    Full Text
  - Thorne, Susan. “Fungusamongus; Or, An Imperial Idea without Enemies.” Journal of British Studies, January 1994.
  - Thorne, Susan. “Fungusamongus; Or, An Imperial Idea without Enemies - Popular Imperialism and the Military: 1850–1950. Edited by John M. MacKenzie. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1992. Pp. ix + 228. $69.95. - Cheap Bibles: Nineteenth-Century Publishing and the British and Foreign Bible Society. By Leslie Howsam. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Pp. xviii + 245. $54.95. - European Women and the Second British Empire. By Margaret Strobel. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1991. Pp. xiii + 108. $27.50. - Western Women and Imperialism: Complicity and Resistance. Edited by Nupor Chaudhuri and Margaret Strobel. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1992. Pp. 288. $39.95.” Journal of British Studies. Cambridge University Press (CUP), January 1994. https://doi.org/10.1086/386047.
    Full Text
  - THORNE, S. “THE IDEAL OF THE SELF-GOVERNING CHURCH - A STUDY IN VICTORIAN MISSIONARY STRATEGY - WILLIAMS,CP.” Victorian Studies, 1993.
    Link to Item
  - Thorne, Susan. “Review of Conversion and Social Equality in India. The London Missionary Society in South Travancore in the 19th Century by Dick Kooiman.” Social History, May 1991.
  - Thorne, Susan. “Review of Missionary Lives. Papua, 1874-1914 by Diane Langmore.” Social History, May 1990.
Teaching & Mentoring
Recent Courses
Advising & Mentoring
- I advise ten undergraduate history majors, with whom I meet at least once every semester. I engage in conversations about their choice of concentration and classes, focusing on intellectual substance/trajectory as well as making sure they are fulfilling university and major requirements. I try to do a respectful mental health check, making clear my availability as a resource to consult should they run into problems that affect their academic performance. I also encourage them to think about how their choice of classes, their path through the major, might contribute to their professional development and their civic engagements.
Available to mentor:
- Post-Doc
- Undergraduate
Teaching Activities
- Supervised Honors research project of James Pierpoint, whose thesis “Charlotte’s Integration Era: The Life and Death of Court-Mandated Busing, 1971-1999” was awarded High Honors May 2018.
  
  Supervised independent study research on the NC mental healthcare system in historical perspective, conducted by Chris Caffrey in Fall 2018.
  
  Examined Kristina Williams's prelim field on the history of the British Atlantic, Spring 2018
Scholarly, Clinical, & Service Activities
Presentations & Appearances
Service to the Profession
- Participant. Faculty Curriculum on Anti-Racism. Duke Office of Faculty Advancement. January 11, 2021 - January 14, 2021 2021

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Education, Training, & Certifications

Previous Appointments & Affiliations

In the News

Awards & Honors

Subject Headings

Global Scholarship

Expertise

Research

Teaching

Selected Publications

Books

Academic Articles

Book Sections

Other Articles

Book Reviews

Recent Courses

Advising & Mentoring

Available to mentor:

Teaching Activities

Presentations & Appearances

Service to the Profession