JAMES ALEXANDER DUN
137 Dickinson Hall
History Department
Princeton University
Princeton, NJ 08544
(609) 258-7473 (office)
[email protected]
EDUCATION
Ph.D.
M.A.
B.A.
Princeton University
Princeton University
Amherst College (magna cum laude)
2004
2000
1992
SCHOLARSHIP
book
Dangerous Neighbors: Making the Haitian Revolution in Early America (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 2016).
articles and chapters
“(Mis)reading the Revolution: Philadelphia and ‘St. Domingo,’ 1789-1792” in Elizabeth Maddock
Dillon and Michael Drexler, eds., Haiti and the Early United States: Histories, Geographies,
Textualities (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016).
“Atlantic Antislavery, American Abolition: The Problem of Slavery in an Age of Disruption,” in
Andrew Shankman, ed., The World of the Revolutionary Republic: Expansion, Conflict, and the
Struggle for a Continent (New York: Routledge, 2014).
“‘A Heroic Epistle’: Dessalines, Napoleon, and Joseph Dennie” in Phil Lapsansky: Appreciations
(Philadelphia: The Library Company of America, 2012).
“Philadelphia not Philanthropolis: the Limits of the Pennsylvanian Antislavery in the Era of the
Haitian Revolution,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography. vol. 135, no. 1 (January
2011): 73-102.
“‘What avenues of commerce, will you, Americans, not explore!’: Commercial Philadelphia’s
Vantage onto the Early Haitian Revolution,” William and Mary Quarterly 3d ser., vol. LXIII, no.
3 (July 2005): 473-504.
encyclopedia articles
“American Reactions to the Haitian Revolution,” in Colin Palmer, ed., Encyclopedia of AfricanAmerican Culture and History, 2nd edition (Macmillan Reference, 2006).
book reviews
Lucy Maddox, The Parker Sisters: A Border Kidnapping in The Journal of Southern History
(forthcoming, 2016).
Sara Fanning, Caribbean Crossing: African Americans and the Haitian Emigration Movement in
Journal of the Early Republic (forthcoming fall 2016).
Ronald Angelo Johnson, Diplomacy in Black and White: John Adams, Toussaint Louverture, and
their Atlantic World Alliance in New West Indian Guide vol. 90, nos. 1&2 (2016).
“Atlantic Thermidor,” review of Matthew J. Clavin, Toussaint Louverture and the American Civil
War and Ashli White, Encountering Revolution: Haiti and the Making of the Early Republic at
www.Common-Place.org, vol. 12, no 4 (published July 2012).
James Alexander (Alec) Dun – curriculum vitae
Sean X. Goudie, Creole America: The West Indies and the Formation of Literature and Culture in the
New Republic on H-Atlantic and H-Caribbean (published December 29, 2006).
Mathew Mulcahy, Hurricanes and Society in the British Greater Caribbean, 1624-1783 in Business
History Review vol. 80, no. 3 (autumn 2006).
Jill Lepore, New York Burning: Liberty Slavery, and Conspiracy in Eighteenth-Century Manhattan in
The New-York Journal of American History vol. LXVI, no. 3 (spring/summer 2006).
Andrew Burstein, Jefferson’s Secrets: Death and Desire at Monticello and Marc Leepson, Flag: An
American Biography, Chicago Tribune, August 7, 2005.
Gordon Wood, The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin in The New-York Journal of American
History vol. LXV, no. 4 (fall 2004).
conference papers and invited lectures
“A Revolution Unthought: Commerce, News, and the Making of the Haitian Revolution in Early
America,” Association of Caribbean Historians Annual Conference, Havana, Cuba, June 2016.
“Getting Word of the Haitian Revolution in Early America,” Fighting Words: Polemical Literature in
the Age of Revolutions, Princeton, NJ, April 2016.
“Home Fires: Elizabeth Drinker’s Revolutions,” Shelby Cullum Davis Center for Historical Studies,
Works In Progress, Princeton, NJ, April 2016.
“Magna Charta and the Origins of the American Republic,” lecture at 117th Baronial Order of Magna
Charta Annual Meeting, Princeton, NJ, October 2015.
Chair, “Recovering Marginalized Voices: Sidney Mintz and Alfred Crosby,” The Transformation of
Global History, 1963-1975, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, October 2015.
“Vessels: An Episode of the Haitian Revolution Comes to the United States,” Society of Historians of
the Early American Republic (SHEAR), Annual Meeting, Raleigh, NC, July 2015.
Chair and Comment, “Hemispheric Histories in an Age of Revolution,” OIEAHC-SEA joint
conference, Chicago, IL, June 2015.
Chair and Comment, “Rethinking the Age of Revolutions: New Perspectives On the Origins of
Modern Political Culture,” Eighteenth-Century Seminar Annual Symposium, Princeton
University, Princeton, NJ, April 2015.
Chair, “Pennsylvania as a Place of Refuge or Exile,” Pennsylvania Historical Association Annual
Meeting, Philadelphia, PA, November 2014.
“(Mis)reading the Revolution: ‘St. Domingo’ and the Limits of Equality in Philadelphia, 1789-1793,”
Workshop in American Studies, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, September 2014.
Chair and Comment, “Constitution-Writing in the Long Eighteenth Century,” Eighteenth-Century
Seminar Annual Symposium, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, April 2014.
Comment, “Democratic Geographies,” Jeffersonian Democracy: From Theory to Practice, Princeton
University, Princeton, NJ, May 2012.
“Reading, Writing, and Walking: Finding the Haitian Revolution in a Quaker Household,” American
Historical Association Annual Meeting, Boston, MA, January 2011.
“‘Shocking Doings” and ‘Altered Times’ in Early National Philadelphia,” Stories of Saint-Domingue,
Stories of Haiti: Representing the Haitian Revolution, 1789-2009, UCLA William Andrews Clark
Memorial Library, Los Angeles, CA, October 2009.
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James Alexander (Alec) Dun – curriculum vitae
“Elizabeth Drinker’s Haitian Revolution,” North American Labor History Conference, Wayne State
University, Detroit, MI, October 2007, Society of Historians of the Early American Republic
(SHEAR), Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, PA, July 2008.
“Principled Self-Interest: maple sugar and antislavery in early national Philadelphia,” American
Studies Workshop, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, April 2007.
“Haiti and History: making and unmaking a Revolution,” lecture at Presbyterian Church of
Lawrenceville, NJ, February 2007.
“‘Philanthropolis’ and Philadelphia: the limits of antislavery cosmopolitanism in the Pennsylvania
Abolition Society, 1793-1805,” American Historical Association Annual Meeting, Philadelphia,
PA, January 2006.
“‘[N]os brigands’: the threat of ‘French Negroes’ in contemporary Philadelphia,” American Studies
Association Annual Meeting, Atlanta, GA, November 2004.
“‘This Place of Liberty’: emancipation in Saint Domingue and Philadelphia,” Organization of
American Historians Annual Meeting, Boston, MA, March 2004.
“Dangerous Cargoes: commercial Philadelphia confronts the Revolution in Saint Domingue,”
Program in Early American Economy and Society Conference, Library Company of Philadelphia,
Philadelphia, PA, November 2003.
“‘Epidermocratical’ or ‘Aristocratical’ Tyranny?: Vincent Ogé and the Chevalier de Mauduit in
Philadelphia, 1789-1792,” New England Historical Association, College of the Holy Cross,
Worcester, MA, October 2003.
“Saint Domingue, the Colonial Question, and Emancipation in Philadelphia,” Omohundro Institute of
Early American History and Culture Conference, New Orleans, LA, June 2003.
“‘Extravagant Pretentions’ and the ‘Venom of Democracy’: Free Colored Equality in Philadelphia,
1789-1792,” “Race and Place” Conference, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, March 2003.
“‘This colony is lost forever’: Saint Domingue, the colonial garden,” Haitian Studies Association
Annual Conference, Port-au-Prince, Haiti, October 2002.
article referee
Early American Studies
William and Mary Quarterly
GRANTS AND AWARDS
American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Fellowship, Boston Athenaeum, summer 2015
(declined)
Joyce Tracy Research Fellowship, American Antiquarian Society, summer 2014
Gest Research Fellowship, Haverford College Special Collections, spring 2013 (declined)
University Committee on Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences, research grant, Princeton
University, 2005-2009, 2015
Program in Early American Economy and Society, Dissertation Fellowship, Library Company of
Philadelphia, 2003-2004
Library Company of Philadelphia/Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
Fellowship, June 2002
Princeton University Graduate School Research Stipend, 2000-2002
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James Alexander (Alec) Dun – curriculum vitae
Princeton University History Department, Mellon Dissertation Stipend, 1999
Amherst College Fellowship, 1996
Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, New York City Teacher Fellowship (studied Atlantic
slavery and emancipation under David B. Davis, Yale University), summer 1995
PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
American Historical Association
Association of Caribbean Historians
Haitian Studies Association
McNeil Center for Early American Studies
Organization of American Historians
Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture
Pennsylvania Historical Association
Society for Historians of the Early American Republic
TEACHING
interests/fields
colonial and revolutionary America
early American republic
U.S. Civil War and Reconstruction
comparative slavery, resistance, and emancipation in Atlantic societies
colonial Caribbean
era of Atlantic revolutions
Haitian Revolution
positions held
Assistant Professor, History Department, Princeton University
2011-present
Department Representative, History Department, Princeton University
2008-2012
Lecturer, History Department, Princeton University
2004-2011
Junior Advisor, History Department, Princeton University
2007-2008
Adjunct, American Studies Program, Temple University (Ambler College)
spring 2007
Preceptor, History Department, Princeton University
2003-2004
History Teacher, St. Ann’s School (Brooklyn, NY)
1993-1998
courses taught
Princeton University
The Era of the American Revolution [undergraduate survey]
The Founders and Their World: histories (and historians) of the new republic [undergraduate seminar]
Readings in American History, 1740-1820 [graduate seminar]
Losers: Power and History in the Age of Revolution [undergraduate seminar]
Approaches to American History (co-taught) [undergraduate methodology course]
Slave Revolts in the Americas: resistance, rebellion, revolution [undergraduate seminar]
Revolutions and the Era of American Independence [Freshman Seminar]
Ways of Knowing [Freshman Scholars Institute, summer 2010]
Temple University
Literatures of Slavery
page 4
James Alexander (Alec) Dun – curriculum vitae
St. Ann’s School
American History (survey)
African American history, 1619-1980
U.S. Civil War Era and Reconstruction
SERVICE EXPERIENCE
Advisory Committee & Executive Committee, Papers of Thomas Jefferson
2011-present
Princeton University
Executive Committee for the Princeton Writing Program
2011-present
Committee on Discipline
2016-17
Search Committee, Director of Princeton Writing Program
spring 2010
Academic Advisor, Mathey College, Butler College
2005-present
Faculty Fellow, Mathey College, Butler College
2003-present
Faculty Reader, Martin A. Dale Fellowship Award
2008
Academic-Athletic Fellow, Men’s & Women’s Varsity Tennis Teams
2007-present
Assistant Master, Butler College
1999-2003
Princeton University History Department
Graduate Admissions/Program Committee
2013-14, ’15-16
Undergraduate Program Committee (ex officio chair)
2010-12, ‘15-16
Finance Committee (ex officio)
2008-11
Planning Committee (ex officio)
2008-11;
2013-14
Coordinator, Professional Development Workshop, History Department
2005-2008
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