PhD in History

Caitlin Hartweave

Caitlin Hartweave is a PhD candidate studying American history, with a focus on gender and gender-non-conformity in the eighteenth century Atlantic world. As a historian, she dedicates her research to broadening and diversifying our understanding of gender in the past. Her dissertation, "Le Dragon de Vertu: The Chevalier(e) d’Eon and Trans Narratives in the Early Atlantic World," investigates the recurring language and narrative themes gender-non-conforming individuals in the eighteenth century British and French empires used to define themselves and their genders. Using the Chevalier d'Eon as a focal point alongside comparative cases, she argues that these narrative commonalities were not merely coincidental but rather came together to form a cultural vocabulary of gender-non-conformity.