معرفی
Mariana Dantas is Associate Professor in the Department of History at Ohio University’s College of Arts and Sciences. Her research and teaching focus on the early modern Atlantic world, with specializations in the history of slavery, African diaspora, urban history, and family dynamics in colonial Latin America, particularly Brazil.
Her research interests center on the social and cultural history of enslaved and free people of African descent in urban colonial settings. She investigates how racial categories, family strategies, and economic participation shaped social mobility and community formation in the Atlantic world. Her work bridges global urban history and diaspora studies, emphasizing transregional connections and material culture.
The recent publications highlight a strong trajectory in global urban history and the social meaning of race and family in colonial Brazil. Themes include manumission, gendered economic agency, visual representations of race, and the entanglement of urban life with Atlantic systems of slavery and trade. Her collaborative work underscores interdisciplinary and international scholarly engagement.
- Fellow, National Humanities Center (2016–2017)
- Visiting Scholar, Centro de Estudos Mineiros, Universidade de Minas Gerais (2011, 2013)
- Visiting Scholar, Centre de Recherches sur le Brésil Colonial et Contemporain, EHESS (2021)
Dr. Dantas has advised numerous undergraduate and graduate theses in colonial Latin American history and slavery studies. She is a founding member and board member of the Global Urban History Project, an initiative that emerged from the Global City: Past and Present Research Network, funded by the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council and Ohio University’s 1804 grant. Her scholarly leadership fosters international collaboration in urban historical research.
She is actively involved in editorial work, having co-edited special sections for Urban History, Almanack, Esboços, and Journal of Urban History. Her book Black Townsmen remains a key contribution to comparative urban slavery studies.
