The College of

Arts and Sciences

Fields

U.S. History since 1877, Borderlands, Gender and Sexuality, Immigration, Drug and Alchohol History, Social and Cultural History, Canada

 

Bio

My research focuses on the history of vice, labor and sexuality in transnational urban spaces from the late-19th century to the present. My first book, "Sin City North: Sex, Drugs, and Citizenship in the Detroit-Windsor Borderland" (UNC Press 2015), examines the history of illegal economies in the Great Lakes border region during the post-World War II period. In 2016, "Sin City North" received the Michigan State History Book Award. I am also the co-editor (along with Dr. George Diaz, UTRGV) of a collection of essays titled "Border Policing: A History of Enforcement and Evasion in North America" (University of Texas Press 2020). This volume traces the development of state regulation and policing practices in the US-Canada, U.S.-Mexico, and Indigenous borderlands. It also explores the impact these policies had on border residents and communities from the nineteenth century to the present. My research has appeared in numerous peer-reviewed journals, including "Social History of Medicine", "Left History", "Journal of the Southwest", "Histoire sociale/Social History", "American Review of Canadian Studies", "Social History of Alcohol and Drugs", "49th Parallel", and "Neoamericanist".  

  

My current book project, A New Home on the Range: Addiction, Treatment, and Punishment in the American West, examines the history of federal drug treatment facilities and the ways in which they were incorporated into a larger system of incarceration and punishment during the mid-twentieth century. In particular, I focus on a treatment facility that operated in Fort Worth, Texas, between the 1930s and 1970s. The initial research for this project has been funded by the Oklahoma Humanities Council, Kentucky Historical Society, Betty Ford Foundation and the College of Arts and Sciences at OSU. 

 

Courses Taught
HIST 5120 Readings in American History, 1877-1939 (Graduate)
HIST 4483 American Culture History Since 1865
HIST 4553 Gender in American History
HIST 4333 History of Sexuality in the United States
HIST 3980 Power and Protest in American History (Honors Seminar)
HIST 2023 History of the Present
HIST 1103 Survey of American History
HIST 1103 Survey of American History (online)