Jane Hooper
Jane Hooper
Director of Undergraduate History Programs
Professor
World History: Global and world history; Indian Ocean history; History of Madagascar; history of slavery and slave trade
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. Her second book, Yankees in the Indian Ocean: American Commerce and Whaling, 1786-1860, was published in 2022 by Ohio University Press. She has also written articles about pirates, slavery, and the slave trade from the Indian Ocean to the Americas.
Dr. Hooper was 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 enslaved in the Seychelles during the age of emancipation.
Selected Publications
“The Memories of Shipmates: Claims to Freedom in Mauritius, 1833-5,” Monsoon: Journal of the Indian Ocean Rim (November 2024)
“ ‘Well Fed but at the Same Time, Well Beaten’: Amelioration in the Seychelles,” Slavery & Abolition (2024)
Yankees in the Indian Ocean: American Commerce and Whaling, 1786-1860. Ohio University Press, Fall 2022.
“American Provisioning and the Environmental Impact on Islands in the Indian Ocean,” Global Food History 6, no. 3 (2020)
“‘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)
“The Transformation of an Eighteenth-Century Madagascar Queen,” in Global Queenship, edited collection, ARC Humanities/Medieval Press, 2018
“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.
“The Indian Ocean in Transatlantic Slavery,” co-written with David Eltis, Slavery & Abolition, volume 34 (3), 2013.
"Pirates and Kings: Power on the Shores of Early Modern Madagascar," Journal of World History, volume 20 (2), June 2011.
Grants and Fellowships
“Global Passages: Creating a Public Database of Slaving Voyages across the Indian Ocean and Asia,” NEH Digital Projects for the Public: Production grant (began 2023, terminated 2025), co-written with Daniel Domingues, Richard Allen, and Matthew Hopper
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 Global History
HIST 261: Introduction to African History (1)
HIST 262: Introduction to African History (2)
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 387/388: US in the World
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
Paper, “Murdering the Translators: Comparative Perspectives on Indian Ocean Shipboard Uprisings,” at SlaveVoyages Conference, Harvard University, April 2025.
Presentation, “SlaveVoyages: Past, Present, and Future,” at Combating Bias workshop, Huygens Institute, Amsterdam, May 2025
Organizer and participant, "Hidden Archives of Capitalism and Slavery in the Indian Ocean World: State, Business, and Personal Collections,” Workshop, Rice University Global Center, Paris, April 22-23, 2024.
Conference paper, “Integrating the Indian Ocean and Asian Slave Trades into Global History: Creating Trans-Regional Databases,” to be co-presented with Daniel Domingues and Matthew Hopper, at conference on “Colonialism, Slavery and Local Histories in Early Modern Asia,” Teleborg Castle, Växjö, Sweden, September 15-16, 2023
Invited participant at conference on “Legacies of Race and Slavery in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans,” organized by The Africa Institute, Zanzibar, June 2023
Invited panelist, Colonial Studies of Massachusetts, Boston, May 2023
Panel chair, “African and Malagasy Diasporas in the Indian Ocean,” and presenter, “Islands of Unfreedom in the Indian Ocean,” African Studies Association, Philadelphia, PA, November 2022
Organizer and participant, workshop on “Reconstructing Indian Ocean and Asia Slaving Voyages, 1500-1900,” Rice University, Houston, TX, September 2022
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