Danielle Skeehan

Danielle Skeehan is an Associate Professor of English at Oberlin College, affiliated with the College of Arts and Sciences. She holds joint appointments in the Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies (GSFS) and Book Studies programs. Her research and teaching focus on the early global Atlantic world, emphasizing material culture, print history, settler colonialism, and empire. Skeehan’s work explores how marginalized communities utilized unconventional mediums like textiles and embroidery to assert authorship and resistance under oppressive conditions. She has authored The Fabric of Empire: Material and Literary Cultures of the Global Atlantic (2020) and contributed to journals such as Early American Studies and The Journal of the Early Republic. Her research has been supported by major grants from the American Council of Learned Societies and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Education:

• BA, Boston University, 2003
• MA, Mills College, 2006
• PhD, Northeastern University, 2013

Research Interests: Skeehan’s interdisciplinary scholarship bridges literary analysis with historical materialism. She examines how objects—such as textiles, recipes, and paper money—functioned as sites of cultural negotiation and resistance in colonial contexts. Her work highlights the agency of enslaved and marginalized individuals in shaping transatlantic narratives through craft and embodied practices. She also investigates intersections of gender, race, and empire in early modern Atlantic writing.

Scientific Awards and Fellowships:

• Research Fellowships at the Library Company of Philadelphia, John Carter Brown Library, McNeil Center for Early American Studies, Clements Library, Folger Shakespeare Library, and Buffalo Bill Center of the West
• American Council of Learned Societies Grant
• National Endowment for the Humanities Grant

Teaching and Advising: Skeehan teaches courses such as Acquired Taste: Literature and Colonial American Foodways and Senior Capstone in GSFS. She emphasizes hands-on learning, requiring students to engage with objects like sewing materials to analyze colonial media practices. No formal advisees are listed, though her courses suggest mentorship roles.

Research Collaborations and Labs: Her institutional affiliations include collaborative research at leading libraries and archives. She actively participates in conferences, such as chairing sessions on Print Culture in the Spanish Atlantic and moderating discussions on Active Learning with Objects. Her work intersects with historical materialism and digital humanities, leveraging archival resources to uncover silenced narratives.