Erik Mathisen
Ph.D. Candidate (ABD)
erikm@sas.upenn.edu
Education
BA, University of Western Ontario; MA, University of Western Ontario; MA, Northwestern University
Fields
U.S. History; History of the American South; Comparative History of Slavery & Emancipation
Research Interests
American South, slavery and emancipation and agrarian history
Dissertation Topic
"Pledges of Allegiance: Obligation, Sovereignty and State Formation in Mississippi Between Slavery and Redemption"
Dissertation Committee
Personal Statement
My interests in agrarian history and the history of rural politics has led me into a project that examines the history of political allegiance and state formation in the Mississippi Valley, between the 1850s and the end of Reconstruction. My dissertation, nearing completion, examines the political culture of rural Mississippians (white and black), focusing on how the Civil War and emancipation upset older understandings of politics and power which had held firm in communities throughout the region. In reaction to this upheaval, I've found hundreds of Mississippians declaring their fealty and offering their allegiances, in ways that complicate the story we tell about the evolution of American politics. At its heart, this project examines the ways in which a people unused to the power of the state, found ways to make that state recognizable and real, in the context of their own political understandings of how power worked. Blending political with social and cultural history, I hope that my project will illuminate just some of the ways in which modern political practice is built with the materials of pre-modern allegiance, as well as a better understanding of how modern states emerge in rural parts of the world and claim the obligations of those living within their borders.
I have been helped along in my work through numerous grants from Penn, including a fellowship with the Penn Humanities Forum and a Dissertation Completion Fellowship from the School of Arts and Sciences. I have also presented my work at a variety of conferences in the U.S. and in the U.K., winning the Russell F. Weigley Award for the best paper presented at the Barnes Club Conference at Temple University. If prospective students have any interest in the program or learning more about my experience in it, please contact me.
