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Susan Thorne

Associate Professor Emerita of History
History
PO Box 90719, Durham, NC 27708-0719
224 Classroom Building, 1356 Campus Drive, Durham, NC 27705
Office hours Wednesdays 1- 4 and by welcome appointment  

Overview


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. 

Current Appointments & Affiliations


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

In the News


Published April 27, 2015
Trinity Honors Excellence in Teaching, Advising and Service
Published August 28, 2013
Duke faculty, students speak out about Moral Monday participation

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Recent Publications


Capitalism and Slavery Compensation

Journal Article small axe · March 2012 Featured Publication The Slave Compensation Commission distributed no less than ₤20 million between 1834 and 1845, making compensation “the largest single financial operation undertaken by the British state to date” (270). Nicholas Draper utilizes the Commission’s untapped r ... Full text Link to item Cite
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Education, Training & Certifications


University of Michigan, Ann Arbor · 1990 Ph.D.
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor · 1984 M.A.
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill · 1981 B.A.