Maria Angela Diaz

Maria Angela Diaz serves as Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where her scholarship centers on 19th-century U.S. South history with particular focus on the Gulf Coast region's complex intersections of race, war, and imperial expansion.

Her research program critically examines Race-making processes and Empire Building dynamics during the Civil War era, extending to Mexican Labor History in the antebellum South and Southern Expansion patterns. Key investigations include how Gulf South communities functioned within broader U.S. imperial frameworks and the contested racial formations that shaped regional identity. This work positions the Gulf Coast as a critical zone for understanding hemispheric power structures.

Diaz's publication trajectory reveals consistent engagement with Civil War-era Gulf South historiography, culminating in her 2024 monograph 'A Continuous State of War'. Her research demonstrates how race-making and empire-building operated as interconnected systems across temporal boundaries, linking antebellum territorial expansion to Civil War dynamics while emphasizing transnational connections with Mexico and the Caribbean. The geographical focus on Pensacola, Texas, and broader Gulf Coast sites challenges conventional narratives of Southern history.