J. Jacob Calhoun
Postdoctoral Fellow at the Nau Center for Civil War History.
About
As a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Nau Center for Civil War History at the University of Virginia studying the history of the emancipation and African American politics during Reconstruction, I have a deep passion for understanding the complexities of this pivotal era in American history. I have a commitment to and record of rigorous research, inclusive pedagogy, and public engagement. I strive to use my scholarship and teaching to address inequality and work toward social and racial justice. I am a native of the Deep South, with roots in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, and when I'm not researching or writing, you can probably find me designing tabletop games or spending time with my family: Rosie and Gumbo.
Education
University of Virginia
May 2024
Doctor of Philosophy, American History
Dissertation: "Reconstruction through Rifles: The Role of Violence in Black Americans' Fight for Liberty in the Postemancipation Era"
-
Committee: Justene Hill Edwards, Caroline Janney, Elizabeth Varon, Lawrie Balfour, Kidada Williams
Comprehensive Exam Fields (All Passed with Distinction)
-
19th Century U.S. History
-
African American History
-
Slavery and Emancipation in North America and the Caribbean
University of Virginia
May 2024
Digital Humanities Certificate
Digital Portfolio
Proficiencies: Historical Geospatial Visualizations, ArcGIS/StoryMaps, Digital Indexing
Program Adviser: Alison Booth
University of Virginia
December 2021
Master of Arts, History
Master's Essay: "Canonniers and Cane Knives: The Violence of Black Citizenship of the Donaldsonville Incident of 1870"
Adviser: Justene Hill Edwards
University of Maryland- College Park
May 2018
Master of Arts, History
Master's Essay: Cultivating Politics: The Formation of a Black Body Politic in the Postemancipation Louisiana Sugar Parishes"
Adviser: Christopher Bonner
Loyola University New Orleans
May 2016
Bachelor of Arts, History (with Honors)
Thesis: "Eatin' Cotton: The Story of the Jacksonville, Alabama Cotton Mill and Its Workers
Adviser: Mark Fernandez
Fellowships Awarded
Postdoctoral Fellow of the Nau Center for Civil War History
Bradley Fellow of the Nau Center for Civil War History
J. Carl Sewell Graduate Fellow of Civil War History
John L. Nau III History and Principles of Democracy Lab Graduate Fellow
2024
2022
2022
2021-2022
Public History Experience
Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society
As a Postdoctoral Associate, leads research efforts to uncover the history of key sites in Albemarle County, Virginia. Responsible for producing digital, public -facing work that contextualizes the history of such sites, and meets with donors to seek out support for the society’s ongoing research efforts. Tasked with supervising undergraduate interns from the University of Virginia, providing them with experience as they navigate primary and secondary sources and offering guidance as in their research pursuits.
May 2024 - Present
Working with fellow researchers, conducted research to discover the history of human trafficking that took place at Court Square in Charlottesville, VA during the nineteenth century. The team identified hundreds of enslaved men, women, and children who were trafficked at the site and produced a report for the City of Charlottesville's Historic Resources Committee. The research undertaken by the Memory Project has informed the Virginia Department of Historic Resources' decision to erect a historical marker commemorating those enslaved and trafficked at Court Square. The team also compiled their findings and relevant genealogical data into a searchable, digitized index titled Enslavement by the Book in collaboration with the Descendants of Enslaved Communities at UVA.
​
September 2021- June 2024
Teaching Experience
University of Virginia
Fall 2020 - Spring 2023
Teaching Assistant, Corcoran Department of History
-
Democracy in Danger
-
American Slavery
-
Modern U.S. Legal History
-
Modern China
University of Maryland- College Park
Spring 2019 - Spring 2021
Instructor of Record, Department of Public Health
-
Senior Capstone Seminar
-
History of Public Health
University of Maryland- College Park
Fall 2016 - Spring 2018
Teaching Assistant, Department of Public Health
-
History of Public Health
Academic Service
Graduate History Student Association
President
Revitalized GHSA after two years of inactivity, which included organizing professional workshops and events pertaining to professional development, the sharing of scholarly work, and trauma counseling. Led efforts to welcome new students by planning and hosting events for prospective students visiting the University of Virginia.
Fall 2022 - May 2024
Graduate Chair of Civil War Seminar
Organized bi-weekly seminars and workshops for the Nau Center of Civil War Studies. Led discussions intended to provide junior and senior scholars with constructive feedback. Assisted in networking with prominent scholars of the Civil War Era and coordinating their visits to the University of Virginia.
Fall 2022 - Summer 2023
Karsh Institute of Democracy Workshops
Participated in workshops and attended lectures on topics revolving around the cultivation and preservation of democratic principles. Presented at a workshop in Fall 2022 on the history of enslavement and human trafficking in Charlottesville in the nineteenth century.
Fall 2021 - Spring 2024
UVA History Department Diversity & Inclusion Working Group
Participated in discussion groups and pedagogical workshops designed to address concerns of diversity and inclusion within the UVA History Department and foster a more equitable, inclusive scholarly atmosphere.
Fall 2019 - Present
Publications
​
Book Review of An Unholy Traffic: Slave Trading in the Civil War South by Robert K. D. Colby, Register of the Kentucky Historical Society (Forthcoming)
“During Reconstruction Southern Planters Called on the US Army to Enforce an Old Status Quo,” America’s Civil War, February 05, 2024
“The Black Lawmen of Reconstruction,” Nau Center for Civil War History Blog, University of Virginia, June 13, 2023.
Book Review of The Bone and Sinew of the Land: America’s Forgotten Black Pioneers and the Struggle for Equality by Anna Lisa Cox, Indiana Magazine of History 118, no. 4 (December 2022).
Book Review of The Women’s Fight: The Civil War’s Battles for Home, Freedom, and Nation by Thavolia Glymph, Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association 62, no. 2 (Spring 2021): 240-24.
Virginia, June 13, 2023.
Conference Presentations
“Pistols and Politics: Black Resistance during the Twilight of Reconstruction.” The Southern Historical Association 89th Annual Meeting, Charlotte, North Carolina November 9-12, 2023
“‘They Would Carry Their Flag to Victory’: Black Self-Armament and the Opelousas Massacre of 1868” Slavery Past, Present & Future: Seventh Global Meeting, Webster University Ghana, Accra, Ghana July 2-8, 2023
“Canonniers and Cane Knives: The Violence of Black Citizenship and the Donaldsonville Incident of 1870” The Society of Civil War Historians Conference, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania June 2-4, 2022
"Falsely Framing the Narrative: Louisiana Newspapers in the Reconstruction Period" Symposium on the Nineteenth Century Press, the Civil War, and Free Expression University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Chattanooga, Tennessee November 7-9, 2019
“Monuments of Public Vengeance: Questions of Slave Punishments and Proportionality in Early National Virginia” Rocky Mountain Interdisciplinary History Conference, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, October 6-8, 2017
“By Bayonets and Gatling Guns” Brian Bertoti Innovative Perspectives in History Graduate Conference, Virginia Tech University, Blacksburg, Virginia, March 18-19, 2017
““Eatin’ Cotton: The Story of the Jacksonville, Alabama, Cotton Mill and Its Workers”
Awarded Honorable Mention, Phi Alpha Theta Regional Conference, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Lafayette, Louisiana, March 18-19, 2016
“The Weeklies and the World: An Examination of Frontier Journalism and Yellow Journalism” Phi Alpha Theta Regional Conference, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Lafayette, Louisiana, March 6, 2015
Digital Project Portfolio
“RPG: Confederacy” Podcast Project (Forthcoming)
UVA- Scholar’s Lab, Listen to the Trailer Here
NOTE: Upon Official Release Podcast May Differ Substantially From This Trailer in Terms of Structure, Content, and Argument
History of Mount Fair (Forthcoming)
​
Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society, ArcGIS Project, Anticipated August 2024
Enslavement by the Book, Digital Index
Karsh Institute of Democracy Memory Project, June 2024
The March on Donaldsonville (StoryMaps)
Advised by Alison Booth, UVA ArcGIS StoryMaps
The March on Donaldsonville (Interactive Map)
Advised by Laurent Dubois, UVA ArcGIS, Spring 2021
Remembering the Yamasee War
UVA ArcGIS, Fall 2019
Visualizing Rowlandson's Removes
Produced in concert with S. Max Edelson’s Geospatial Visualization Course, University of Virginia ArcGIS Fall 2019
Jacques Cartier's Intrusions
UVA - MapScholar, Fall 2019
Current Projects
"Reconstruction Through Rifles: The Role of Violence in Black Americans' Fight for Liberty in the Postemancipation Era"
This dissertation project explores how Black southerners operated as the military and political vanguard of the Reconstruction South, specifically examining how freedpeople wielded measured force to combat white terrorism in the postemancipation South. Using Louisiana as a case-study, this project challenges us to understand how federal troops' frequent inability or unwillingness to protect Black southerners from white terrorists meant that freedpeople had to take up arms themselves to secure their lives and citizenship rights and to prop up the federal project of Reconstruction themselves. The project nears completion, and I am currently in talks with UNC- Chapel Hill Press to convert the dissertation into a book.
RPG: Confederacy
"RPG: Confederacy" will explore how people have historically gamified the U.S. Civil War and continue to do so through mediums such as board games, videogames of various genres, theater, and dramatic reenactments. The focus of the podcast, as suggested by its title, will be the specific and surprisingly widespread practice of people “roleplaying” as either soldiers in the Confederate States of America or as the governmental body of the Confederacy itself. By interviewing participants of diverse backgrounds, identities, and experiences that participate or engage with these practices, the podcast seeks to interrogate the moral quandaries, supposed historical benefits, and potential harms of roleplaying confederates and/or the confederacy. The first episode, exploring the online multiplayer videogame "War of Rights" and its surrounding communities, will release in Fall 2024.