Gunja Sengupta

  Professor
  Department: History
  Location: 502s Whitehead Hall
  Phone: 718-951-5000 x2806
  Fax: 718-951-4504

  Email:

I grew up in India, learned U.S. history in New Orleans, and taught college in Texas before moving to New York in 1998. My intellectual interests are eclectic, bound by the common thread of narratives of race and nation: my first book, For God and Mammon: Evangelicals and Entrepreneurs, Masters and Slaves in Territorial Kansas (1996) dealt with sectional conflict and consensus, while my forthcoming book, From Slavery to Poverty: The Racial Origins of Welfare in New York, 1840-1918 (2009), explores welfare discourse as a site for negotiating identity. I am currently working on two projects: the first, co-authored with Awam Amkpa, deals with history, memory, and films of the Black Atlantic. The second is a comparative study of slavery and abolition in the Atlantic and Indian Ocean worlds.

Education:
Ph.D., Tulane University - 1991 (History)

B.A., University of Bombay - 1985 (History )

Areas of Expertise:
I teach undergraduate and graduate courses on the Civil War and Reconstruction, African American history, U.S. Women's history, and comparative slavery. Since September 2007, I have served as Director of the Macaulay Honors College at Brooklyn College.

Books and Publications
Forthcoming in 2009: From Slavery to Poverty: The Racial Origins of Welfare in New York, 1840-1918 (New York: New York University Press, 2009).

(Books and Publications: Forthcoming Publications) 2008

Forthcoming:
Three Essays entitled "Women's Prison Association," "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl," and "Mammy" in Hasia R. Diner ed., Enclyclopedia on Women in American History to be published by Facts on File.

(Books and Publications: Forthcoming Publications) 2008

Selected Book reviews/review essays between 2004-07 include those of/on, Jonathan Earle, Jacksonian Antislavery and the Politics of Free Soil, 1824-1854.(Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 2004) in Journal of Southern History; Lorman A. Ratner and Dwight L. Teeter, jr., Fanatics and Fire-Eaters: Newspapers and the Coming of the Civil War (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2003) in Journal of Southern History.
Nicole Etcheson, Bleeding Kansas (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004), in Great Plains Quarterly.

(Books and Publications: Other Article) 2007

"Bleeding Kansas: A Review Essay," in Virgil Dean ed., Territorial Kansas Reader (Topeka, KS: Kansas State Historical Society, 2005). (Books and Publications: Chapter) 2005

"Elites, Subalterns, and American Identities: A Case Study of African American Benevolence," American Historical Review 109 (October 2004): 1104-1139.
(Books and Publications: Peer Reviewed Article) 2004

Selected book reviews/review essays between 2001 and 2004 include those of Craig Steven Wilder, Covenant With Color (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000) in the Journal of American Ethnic History; Christopher Phillips, Missouri's Confederate: Claiborne Fox Jackson and the Creation of Southern Identity in the Border West (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 2000) in the Journal of Southern History; James Simeone, Democracy and Slavery (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2000), in Annals of Iowa. (Books and Publications: Other Article) 2003

"'Black and Dangerous?' African-American Working Poor Perspectives on Juvenile Reform and Welfare in Victorian New York, 1840-1890,"Journal of Negro History LXXXVI (Spring 2001): 99-131. (Books and Publications: Peer Reviewed Article) 2001

"Bleeding Kansas," Kansas History 24 (Winter 2001-02): 318-341. (Books and Publications: Peer Reviewed Article) 2001

Selected book reviews/review essays between 1997-2000 include those of Michael A. Morrison, Slavery and the American West (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997) in Journal of Southern History; Glenda Riley, Building and Breaking Families in the American West (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1996) in Journal of the West; Paul Finkelman, Dred Scott v. Sanford (Boston: Bedford Books, 1997) in The Georgia Historical Quarterly; Charles E. Heller, Portrait of an Abolitionist (Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1996) in Kansas History. (Books and Publications: Other Article) 2000

"Alice Paul" in Peter Parish ed., Reader's Guide to American History (London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997). (Books and Publications: Other Article) 1997

"Angelina and Sarah Grimke," Peter Parish ed., Reader's Guide to American History (London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997). (Books and Publications: Other Article) 1997

"Women's Issues in India," (Texas) Commerce Journal (newspaper) April 2, 1997. (Books and Publications: Other Article) 1997

For God and Mammon: Evangelicals and Entrepreneurs, Masters and Slaves in Territorial Kansas, 1854-1860 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1996). (Books and Publications: Book) 1996

"'A Model New England State': Northeastern Antislavery in Territorial Kansas, 1854-1860," Civil War History 29 (March 1993): 31-46. (Books and Publications: Peer Reviewed Article) 1993

"Servants for Freedom: Christian Abolitionists in Territorial Kansas, 1854-1858," Kansas History 16 (Autumn 1993): 200-213. (Books and Publications: Peer Reviewed Article) 1993

Awards, Honors and Fellowships
Wolfe Institute Fellowship (Grants and Fellowships) 2006

Claire and Leonard Tow Professorship (Awards and Honors) 2005

PSC-CUNY research grant, 2004 (Grants and Fellowships) 2004

Selected a Broeklundian favorite professor by graduating seniors of Brooklyn College (Awards and Honors) 2004

Tow Travel Fellowship (Grants and Fellowships) 2003

Mrs. Giles Whiting Fellowship (Grants and Fellowships) 2001

PSC-CUNY research grant, 2000 (Grants and Fellowships) 2000

Paul W. Barrus Distinguished Faculty Award for Teaching, Texas Association of College Teachers (TACT) and the Faculty Senate of Texas A & M University. Commerce. (Awards and Honors) 1998

Texas A & M/East Texas State University Organized Research Grant, 1996-97

(Grants and Fellowships) 1996

Texas A & M/East Texas State University Organized Research Grant, 1991
(Grants and Fellowships) 1991

Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums
"Intimate Portraits: African Americans in Antebellum Greenwich Village," invited lecture,
Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation.
(Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2008

"Recreating Community: The Black Migration from Farm to City," Invited lecture before the Fulbright Institute on the Civilization of the United States, New York University. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2008

"Slave and 'Daughter'": Representations of Slavery and Prostitution in Colonial Bengal Presidency," invited lecture at "Interrogating Boundaries" Symposium, Fairleigh Dickinson University. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2007

"Who Owns Brooklyn? From Farms to Brownstones," Brooklyn Historical Society, Sponsored by Weeksville Heritage Society and Brooklyn Historical Society. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2007

"Making Multimedia History," CUNY Information Technology Conference. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2006

Lecture on African American migration, Fulbright Institute on the Civilization of the United States, New York University. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2005

Invited lecture on Great Migration, the Fulbright Institute on the Civilization of the United States, New York University, 2004 and 2003. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2004

"American Identity and the 'Culture of Poverty': African American Women and Social Welfare," Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, University of Rochester. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 1999

"Race, Religion and Resistance: Unfree Labor in India and the American South," Columbia University Faculty Seminar on Law and Political Institutions.
(Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 1999

"Total Institutions and the Women of New York's 'Dangerous Classes', 1840-1915," American Historical Association. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 1998

"African American Benevolence History From the Bottom Up: The Howard Orphanage and Industrial School, 1866-1920," Social Science History Conference. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 1998

"Benevolence History From the Bottom Up: The Women of Hopper Home, 1840-1915," Southern Association of Women Historians. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 1997

Chair and Commentator, Session entitled "Rewriting the Political History of Bleeding Kansas," Mid-America Conference on History. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Contributed Talk) 1997

Chair and Commentator, Session on African American History, Southwestern Social Sciences Association. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Contributed Talk) 1997

"Islands and Bridges in the US history survey," session on teaching innovations at the Mid-America Conference on History. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 1996

"Northeastern Antislavery in Kansas, 1854-1860," Invited speaker at Symposium on the Civil War in Kansas, sponsored by the Kansas State Historical Society and the Kansas Humanities Council. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 1996

Chair and Commentator, Session on Spain and Mexico, Southwestern Social Sciences Association. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Contributed Talk) 1996

"Abolitionism in Kansas," Invited speaker at Symposium on the Civil War in Kansas, sponsored by the Kansas State Historical Society. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 1995

"Slavery, 'Popery' and Human Progress: Bleeding Kansas and the Coming of the Civil War," Organization of American Historians.
(Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 1994

Co-Chair and Commentator, Session on Mexico and the British Empire, Southwestern Social Sciences Association. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Contributed Talk) 1994

"A New Order in Territorial Kansas, 1854-1858," American Historical Association and the University of North Texas Teaching of History Conference, Denton, Texas. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 1993

Chair and Commentator, Phi Alpha Theta Session on Latin America, Southwestern Social Sciences Association. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Contributed Talk) 1993

"Evangelicals and Entrepreneurs: Northeastern Antislavery in Territorial Kansas, 1854-1858," Mid-America Conference on History. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 1992

"Planting the 'Trophies of Free Labor': Northeastern Evangelicals and Entrepreneurs in Territorial Kansas, 1854-1860," Southern Historical Association. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 1992

Co-Chair and Commentator, "Slavery and Abolition," Southwestern Social Sciences Association. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Contributed Talk) 1992

"Black Women and the Civil Rights Movement," American Historical Association Teaching of History Conference, Denton, Texas. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 1991