Abigail Cooper
Degrees
University of Pennsylvania, Ph.D.Yale University, M.A.
Barnard College Columbia University, B.A.
Expertise
U.S. History, Slavery and Emancipation, Civil War and Reconstruction, American Religion & Culture, 19th Century, Social History of Marginalized PeoplesProfile
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My current work examines the world of ritual and revival and its meaning for political awakening in Black refugee or "contraband camps" of the American Civil War. These camps were known as "contraband camps" because African Americans were considered to be between slavery and freedom as "confiscated contraband property" in U.S.-controlled territory across the South. This project elucidates the possibilities and complications of Black spiritual creativity in these camps for kinship formation and postwar political participation. It reckons with "religion" as a dynamic and precarious mediating force between the enslaved and the state at the end of slavery. And it penetrates the question "Who belongs and how?" for those negotiating statelessness and peoplehood in the midst of their self-emancipation. For more on my graduate students, research, courses, and media, click on my webpage. Webpage
Courses Taught
| GSAS | 301d | Social Science Proposal and Dissertation Writing Seminar |
| HIST | 50b | American Transformations: Perspectives on United States History, Origins to the Present |
| HIST | 153b | Slavery and the American Civil War: #1619 Project |
| HIST | 157b | Marginalized Voices and the Writing of History |
| HIST | 158b | Social History of the Confederate States of America |
| HIST | 212b | Refugees and Comparative States of Statelessness |
| HIST/SOC | 216a | Migration, Dislocation and Dispossession in North American History |
Awards and Honors
Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship, Massachusetts Historical Society (2018)
AAS-National Endowment for the Humanities Long-Term Fellowship, American Antiquarian Society (2016 - 2017)
Caleb Loring, Jr. Fellowship, Boston Athenaeum (2016)
Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Abolition, and Resistance Postdoctoral Fellowship, Yale University (2016)
Library & Technology Services Information Literacy Grant, Brandeis University (2015)
Provost Research Award, Brandeis University (2015 - 2016)
Mandel Faculty Grant in the Humanities Award, Brandeis University (2014 - 2015)
Alumnae Association of Barnard College Fellowship (2013 - 2014)
Digital Humanities Training Grant for MITH Winter Institute, Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities, University of Maryland (2013)
Scholarship
Cooper, Abigail. "Keynote Address: The Revolution Begins At Sundown: Folk Revivals as Seedbeds for Resistance in American Emancipation." Southeastern Regional Graduate Conference in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Florida State University. March 3, 2017.
Cooper, Abigail. "‘Away I Goin' to Find My Mamma': Self-Emancipation, Migration, and Kinship in Refugee Camps in the Civil War Era." Journal of African American History 102. 4 (2017): 444-467.
Abigail Cooper, C-SPAN. Freed People's Refugee Camps. October 27, 2016. Civil War Institute. <https://www.c-span.org/video/?410243-101/freed-peoples-refugee-camps>.
Cooper, Abigail. "Black Reconstructions: Rethinking the State, the Body, and the Body Politic in Late Nineteenth-Century America." American Historical Association Annual Meeting, Atlanta, Georgia. 2016.
Cooper, Abigail. "Black Refugee Migration in the Civil War Era." The Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition. Brownbag Lecture. September 2017.
Cooper, Abigail. "Keynote Address: Interpreting Agency." UMassBoston Interdepartmental Conference. University of Massachusetts-Boston. April 2nd, 2016.
Cooper, Abigail. "Mapping the Refugee Camps of the American Civil War and Emancipation." American Antiquarian Society. Worcester, MA. November 2016.
Cooper, Abigail. "Performance for Reconstruction: From Refugee Camps to Freedmen’s Villages." 2016 Civil War Institute Summer Conference: Reconstruction & the Legacy of the Civil War. Gettysburg College. June 2016.
Cooper, Abigail. "The Feet Under the Nation: Grassroots Leadership during the American Civil War Era." Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting, Providence, Rhode Island. April 2016.
Cooper, Abigail. "'Lord, Until I Reach My Home': Inside the Refugee Camps of the American Civil War." Diss. University of Pennsylvania, 2015.
Cooper, Abigail. "In the Aftermath of Catastrophe." Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies. Princeton University. Oct. 2, 2015.
Cooper, Abigail. "On the Meeting Grounds." University of Mississippi Sesquicentennial Civil War Conference. Oct. 4, 2013.