My current research examines governance in the eighteenth-century Portuguese Empire in America.
I began studying the history of Iberia and Latin America as an undergraduate exchange student at the Universidad Complutense in Madrid. My book Tropical Versailles (2001) examined the ways in which the Napoleonic invasion of Portugal transformed understandings of monarchy and empire in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. My current research examines governance in the eighteenth-century Portuguese Empire in America.
At Seton Hall, along with Western Civilization and Latin American History I and II, I teach courses on the political and cultural history of Latin America and Iberia.
- Ph.D. History, New York University
- M.A. History, New York University
- B.A. History, University of California, Berkeley
- B.A. Political Science, University of California, Berkeley
- American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship, 2011
- National Endowment for the Humanities, Summer Stipend, 2010
- Major Cultures Fellowship, Society of Fellows in the Humanities, Columbia University, 1999
- American Association of University Women, Dissertation Fellowship, 1997-1998
- Social Science Research Council Fellowship, 1997
- Fulbright Scholarship, Brazil, 1995-1996
- Slavery, Empire, and Civilization: a Luso-Brazilian Defense of the Slave Trade in the Age of Revolutions
Slavery and Abolition v.34, n.1: 98-117,
- Sol Oriens in Occiduo: Representations of the city and empire in eighteenth-century Brazil (book chapter)
In Liam Brockey (Ed.) "Portuguese Colonial Cities in the Early Modern World," Surrey, UK: Ashgate,
- La Independencia de Brasil, la Ciudadanía, y el Problema de la Esclavitud: la Assembléia Constituinte de 1823 (book chapter)
In Jaime E. Rodriguez O. (Ed.), "Revolución, Independencia, y las Nuevas Naciones de América," Madrid: MAPFRE/Tavera,
- Tropical Versailles: Empire, Monarchy, and the Portuguese Royal Court in Rio de Janeiro 1808-1821