Jane Hooper

Jane Hooper

Jane Hooper

Director of Undergraduate History Programs

Associate Professor

World History: Global and world history; Indian Ocean history; History of Madagascar

Jane Hooper received her Ph.D. from Emory University in 2010. She teaches courses in global and Indian Ocean history, as well as the history of Africa and the slave trade. Her first book, Feeding Globalization: Madagascar and the Provisioning Trade, 1600-1800, was published in 2017 by Ohio University Press as part of their Indian Ocean Studies series. She has also written articles about pirates, the slave trade from the Indian Ocean to the Americas, and the Indian Ocean slave trade. Her second book, Yankees in the Indian Ocean: American Commerce and Whaling, 1786-1860, will be published in fall 2022. 

Dr. Hooper is currently a co-PI on a three-year NEH production grant (Digital Projects for the Public) for “Global Passages: Creating a Public Database of Slaving Voyages across the Indian Ocean and Asia.” The database will ultimately be incorporated into the SlaveVoyages website (slavevoyages.org).

Current Research

She is currently researching the experiences of those living on tiny islands in the Indian Ocean during the age of emancipation. 

Selected Publications

Yankees in the Indian Ocean: American Commerce and Whaling, 1786-1860. Ohio University Press, Fall 2022. 

Article, “American Provisioning and the Environmental Impact on Islands in the Indian Ocean,” Global Food History 6, no. 3 (2020)

Article, “‘A Mere Business Affair’? Women in the Social and Commercial Worlds of Nineteenth-Century Madagascar,” special issue on “Women, trade and landed property in Africa,” Canadian Journal of African Studies 54, no. 3 (2020)

Article, “Yankees in Indian Ocean Africa: Madagascar and Nineteenth-century American Commerce,” Journal of African Economic History 46, no. 2 (2018)

Feeding Globalization: Madagascar and the Provisioning Trade, 1600-1800, Indian Ocean Studies Series, Ohio University Press, June 2017.

Bibliographical guide, “Madagascar,” Oxford Bibliographies in African Studies, 2015.

Article, “The Indian Ocean in Transatlantic Slavery,” co-written with David Eltis, Slavery & Abolition, volume 34 (3), 2013.

Article, "Pirates and Kings: Power on the Shores of Early Modern Madagascar," Journal of World History, volume 20 (2), June 2011.

Grants and Fellowships

Geoffrey and Elizabeth Thayer Verney Fellowship, Nantucket Historical Association, 2019

Research fellowship, New England Regional Fellowship Consortium, 2016-7

Courses Taught

HIST 125: Introduction to World History

HIST 261: Introduction to African History

HIST 387: Pirates, Sailors, and Slaves: History of the Indian Ocean

HIST 394: History of Globalization

HIST 387: Africa in the Era of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade

HIST 535/615/635: History of the Tran-Atlantic Slave Trade

 

Education

Ph D., History, Emory University, 2010

          Dissertation: An Island Empire in the Indian Ocean: The Sakalava Empire of Madagascar

M.A., History, Emory University, 2008

B.A., History, Grinnell College, 2003

Recent Presentations

Participant, Roundtable: Pier Larson’s Legacy in African Studies, African Studies Association, November 2021

Conference paper, “Manifest Destiny, the Indian Ocean, and the Imperial Future of the United States,” Forum on Early-Modern Empires and Global Interactions (FEEGI), St. Louis, MO, February 2020

Conference paper and panel organizer, “Provisioning Islands in the Indian Ocean,” American Historical Association, Chicago, IL, January 2019

Conference paper, “Temporary Marriages and Coastal Commerce in Nineteenth-century Madagascar,” African Studies Association, Atlanta, GA, November 2018

Invited paper, “The Slave Trade of Madagascar,” Towards an Indian Ocean and Maritime Asia Slave Trade Database, International Institute for Social History, Amsterdam, September 2018