Matthew J. Clavin
Matthew J. Clavin
Professor of History
Phone:(713)743-3109
Email: mjclavin@uh.edu
Office: 561 Agnes Arnold Hall
Professor Clavin writes and teaches in the areas of American and Atlantic history, with a focus on the history of race, slavery, and abolition. He received his Ph.D. at American University in 2005 and is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships from the American Antiquarian Society, the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and others.
Teaching
Professor Clavin teaches both halves of the United States survey course as well as a wide variety of upper level and graduate courses in early American and Atlantic history, from the earliest days of colonization through the late nineteenth century.
Research Interests
Professor Clavin’s most recent publication is Symbols of Freedom: Slavery and Resistance before the Civil War. Published by New York University Press, the book tells the surprising story of how enslaved people and their allies drew inspiration from the language and symbols of American freedom. Interpreting patriotic words, phrases, and iconography literally, they embraced a revolutionary nationalism that not only justified but inspired open opposition to slavery. Dr. Clavin has published a variety of other books, articles, and chapters on slavery and slave resistance in early America and the Atlantic world.
Selected Publications
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Symbols of Freedom: Slavery and Resistance Before the Civil War (NYU Press, 2023).
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The Battle of Negro Fort: The Rise and Fall of a Fugitive Slave Community (NYU Press, 2019).
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Aiming for Pensacola: Fugitive Slaves on the Atlantic and Southern Frontiers (Harvard University Press, 2015).
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Toussaint Louverture and the Civil War: the Promise and Peril of a Second Haitian Revolution (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010).