Untold Histories of the Atlantic World

In this episode, Nina Borba joins me to discuss the history of the everyday lives of enslaved Africans in the Central West of Brazil. Nina is a Ph.D. candidate in History, with a specialization in Latin America, at Stanford University, where she also completed her master's degree. Nina’s research focuses on the African diaspora in the hinterlands of Brazil, particularly on the formation of communities and families by enslaved people in Mato Grosso during the 18th and 19th centuries. As a historian, Nina is dedicated to sharing Brazil's racial history as living, accessible knowledge connected to the Brazilian population.

In this episode, Chichi Ayalogu joins me in discussing the history of the Biafran secessionists’ gambit to sustain the independence movement during the Nigerian Civil War, 1967–1970. This episode aims to examine this topic within the context of the Atlantic World. Chichi is a PhD Candidate in the Institute of Comparative Studies in Literature, Art and Culture at Carleton University. Her research on diasporic witnessing lies at the intersections of memory studies, visual culture, and diasporic studies, foregrounding scholarship on creative economies and subject position. Her writing has been published in the Journal of Postcolonial Writing, the Nordic Journal of African Studies, and ASAP/review. In addition to her full-time research, she wears multiple hats as an emerging arts curator, a college instructor teaching general education courses, and, most importantly, a mother and partner.

In this episode, we will be discussing the history of race, migration, and public health through the lens of leprosy during the late 19th- and early 20th-century in the United States. This episode aims to examine this topic within the context of the Atlantic World. Joining me is Jackie Wu. Jackie is a PhD candidate in the Department of History at Yale University, where she coordinates the Asian American Studies Working Group. Before coming to Yale, Jackie received her BA in Social and Political History as well as a BS in Business Administration from Carnegie Mellon University.

In this episode, Sébastien Byron joins me in conversation about the history of Haiti’s early diplomacy with Spanish America in the 19th-century Atlantic. Sébastien is currently a PhD student in Latin American and Caribbean History at Yale University. He previously earned an MPhil in World History from the University of Cambridge. His undergraduate dissertation examined the Haitian Indemnity of 1825 and the wider trans-Atlantic relationship between Haiti and Latin America. Sébastien was an undergraduate Mellon Mays Fellow at CUNY, Queens. His research centers on Haitian diplomacy, state-making in Latin America, and under-discussed narratives that reconceptualize our understanding of the region.

In today’s episode, we will be discussing the history of slavery and piracy. Joining me is Claire Steele.  She is an independent historian. Claire earned her PhD from Georgetown University in 2025. She researches the intersecting histories of slavery and piracy across the early modern Atlantic World. Claire has taught classes on both piracy and on material culture in the Atlantic World, the latter of which was awarded Georgetown’s Graduate Student Teaching Award in the Humanities. Claire’s commitment to public history can be seen through her work with the Diplomatic Reception Rooms, DC History Center, On These Grounds, and Nobles County Historical Society.

In this episode, Naomi Glaser joins me in a discussion about the history of Fort Mose, the site of the first legally sanctioned free African settlement in what is now the United States. This episode not only aims to examine this history within an Atlantic World framework, but also considers what it means to be a historian more broadly. Naomi is known on social media as @Naomiloveshistory and creates content as both a historical costumer and history enthusiast. Her approach is grounded in everyday life experiences through fashion, food, and material culture.

In this episode, we will explore the story of an unjustly forgotten civil rights legend, Audley Moore. Joining me is Ashley Farmer. Ashley is an award-winning writer, researcher, and cultural analyst who explores Black history and its implications today. Ashley is an Associate Professor in the Department of History and African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. The focus of this discussion will be on Ashley’s latest publication, Queen Mother: Black Nationalism, Reparations, and the Untold Story of Audley Moore, which is the first major biography of one of the most influential yet understudied activists and thinkers of the 20th century. This book shows how Audley Moore fundamentally changed the scope and shape of Black struggle today.

In this episode, we will be discussing the history of the impact of the transatlantic slave economy on the lives and times of some of the most well-known poets of the British Romantic literary tradition, such as Shelley and Keats, among others. Joining me is Mathelinda Nabugodi. Mathelinda is a Lecturer in Comparative Literature at University College London. She is the author of Shelley with Benjamin: A Critical Mosaic (2023) and one of the editors on the six-volume Longman edition of The Poems of Shelley (1989-2024). Her current research explores the connections between British Romanticism and the Black Atlantic. This episode focuses on her recently published book, The Trembling Hand: Reflections of a Black Woman in the Romantic Archive. 

In this episode, we will be discussing the history of social networks of women of African Descent in New Spain. Joining me is Ursula Rall.

Ursula is a PhD Candidate in History at Emory University and is currently a dissertation fellow at the McNeil Center for Early American Studies. Her dissertation, titled “Forging Inter-Urban Communities: The Spatial Mobilities and Social Networks of Women of African Descent in New Spain: 1580-1745,” investigates the spatial mobility of Afro-descended women within and between three cities in central Mexico during the seventeenth century: Mexico City, Puebla, and Veracruz. More specifically, her dissertation asserts the contributions of Black women to the decline of the institution of slavery, the social mobility of the Afro-descended population, and Black identity formation in New Spain. Her research has been supported by a Fulbright-Hays doctoral research abroad grant, the American Historical Association, the Forum on Early Modern Empires and Global Interactions, and the Conference on Latin American History. She holds a BA in History from Bates College.

In today’s episode, we will be discussing the history of women’s domestic devotion in the early Afro-Iberian Atlantic world. Joining me is Nathalie Miraval. Nathalie is a PhD Candidate in Art History at Yale University. She studies the spiritual expressive cultures of the early modern Afro-Iberian Atlantic, with a focus on gender and race. Her work has been supported by the Casa de Velázquez (Madrid), the Renaissance Society of America, the Huntington Library, the John Carter Brown Library, and a U.S. Fulbright to Mexico. Before Yale, Nathalie served as Public Programming and Outreach Fellow at Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection in Washington, DC, where she designed and implemented the institution’s first educational programs. In 2014, she earned a BA in History of Art and Architecture with a secondary in Ethnicity, Migration and Rights from Harvard.