Dr. Susan Stearns is an Associate Professor of History in the Department of History at the University of Mississippi.
Research Interests
- The relationship between national expansion, capitalism, and state formation in the decades following the American Revolution.
- Early American commerce and political economy.
- The American Revolution, the Articles of Confederation, and the American Founding
- The Mississippi Valley and Gulf South
Biography
Dr. Susan Gaunt Stearns is an Assistant Professor of History. She received her doctorate from The University of Chicago in 2011. Susan’s work focuses on how the trans-Appalachian west — the region encompassing the Ohio and Mississippi River Valleys, came to be incorporated into the American union in the 1780s and 1790s, and the role that international trade played in questions of American settler expansion.
Dr. Stearns is particularly interested in questions of how various areas of economic activity, particularly land purchases and land speculation, influenced the ideologies and politics that shaped the nation in its first few decades of the early Republic. She is also interested in historical pedagogy, and questions of how history is both taught and learned.
Publications
Books:
Empire of Commerce (Under contract with University of Virginia Press)
Articles:
“The Sutler’s Empire: Frontier Merchants and Imperial Authority, 1790-1811,” in The Early Imperial Republic: From the American Revolution to the U.S.–Mexican War, Noe Arista, Michael Blaakman, and Emily Conroy Krutz, eds. (In Press, University of Pennsylvania Press, forthcoming May 2023).
“Federalism on the Frontier: Secession and Loyalty in the Trans-Appalachian West,” in From Independence to the U.S. Constitution: Reconsidering the Critical Period of American History, Douglas Bradburn and Christopher Pearl, eds. (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2022), 126-151.
“Diplomacy, or Treason?: The Spanish Conspiracy in Broader Context,” Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, vol. 114, nos. 3/4 (Summer/Autumn 2016).
Courses Taught
- HST 130 Intro to U.S. History to 1877
- HST 401 Colonial America, 1607-1763
- HST 402 Revolutionary America, 1763-1800
- HST 452 Mississippi History
- HST 550 Historical Methods & Philosophy of History
- HST 605 Readings—U.S. Through Reconstruction
Education
Ph.D. History, University of Chicago (2011)