Mary Hicks

Mary Hicks is a historian specializing in the Black Atlantic, with expertise in transnational histories of race, slavery, capitalism, migration, and the early modern world. She is the author of the acclaimed book "Captive Cosmopolitans: Black Mariners and the World of South Atlantic Slavery, 1721-1835," which reimagines Portuguese exploration and Atlantic commerce from the perspective of enslaved and freed black seamen who served as subaltern cosmopolitans forging commercial networks between Salvador da Bahia and the Bight of Benin.

Hicks received her B.A. from the University of Iowa and her Ph.D. from the University of Virginia, where she was awarded the prestigious Jefferson Fellowship. Her scholarly trajectory has been supported by significant funding including the Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship and the Mamolen Fellowship at Harvard University's Hutchins Center.

Her research program systematically interrogates the complex connections between West Africa and Brazil through mutual cultural, technological, commercial, intellectual, and environmental influences. Hicks challenges conventional narratives of Atlantic history by centering the experiences of enslaved peoples, particularly focusing on black mariners' agency in shaping transatlantic networks and exploring the cultural and religious sensibilities of enslaved and freed African women in 19th century Salvador da Bahia. Her second book project examines the emergence of gendered and racialized subjectivities following Portugal's initiation of trade with West Africa.

Hicks has received significant recognition for her scholarly contributions:

• Winner of the Southern Historical Association's Latin American & Caribbean Section Dissertation Prize
• Finalist for the CGS/Proquest Distinguished Dissertation Award for Humanities and Fine Arts
• Recipient of the Mamolen Fellowship at Harvard's Hutchins Center
• Holder of the Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship

As a public intellectual, Hicks actively engages broader audiences through media appearances including the Unsung History podcast discussing "The Enslaved Mariners on the Crews of Brazilian Slave Ships," Freedom Now with Gerald Horne, and Historians At The Movies Podcast with Jason Herbert. Her work represents a significant intervention in Atlantic World scholarship, highlighting how enslaved peoples actively shaped the commercial and cultural landscapes of the early modern period rather than merely enduring them.