Scot A. French, Ph.D.

• Associate Professor
E-mail

• 407-823-5900
• Office Hours: M 2:30-4:00
• Campus Location: CNH411A

Education

• Ph.D. in History from University of Virginia (2000)

Research Interests

• Digital and Public History
• Community Studies/Local Knowledge
• Sites of Memory
• Southern History
• African American History
• Atlantic World/African Diaspora

Recent Research Activities

Scot French is a digital public historian who specializes in the interpretation of cultural landscapes and sites of memory associated with African American, Southern, and Atlantic World history. From 1997-2006, French served as Assistant/Associate/Interim Director of the University of Virginia's Carter G. Woodson Institute for African-American and African Studies. More recently, from 2006-2010, he directed the Virginia Center for Digital History at the University of Virginia. He is the author of The Rebellious Slave: Nat Turner in American Memory (Houghton Mifflin, 2004) and co-author, with Craig Barton and Peter Flora, of Booker T. Washington Elementary School and Segregated Education in Virginia (National Park Service, 2007). His film, "That World is Gone: Race and Displacement in a Southern Town," won Audience Favorite, Best Short Documentary, at the 2010 Virginia Film Festival. He was recently named Digital Editor of the Florida Historical Quarterly. His current research project, "Africa on Park Street," explores the private worlds revealed through public documents when a quiet Virginia neighborhood was disrupted by a capital crime at the turn of the 20th century.

Selected Publications

Books

• Scot A. French, The Rebellious Slave: Nat Turner in American Memory (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2004)

Miscellaneous Publications

• Scot A. French, Craig Barton, and Peter Flora., Booker T. Washington Elementary School and Segregated Education in Virginia (Washington, D.C.: Department of Interior, 2007).

Awards

2010 Black Community Advocate Award, presented by the University of Virginia's Black Student Alliance, Black Leadership Institute, and the UVA chapter of the NAACP

2010 Winner, Audience Favorite, Best Short Documentary, Virginia Film Festival, That World is Gone: Race and Displacement in a Southern Town

2005 Honorable Mention, Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award, The Rebellious Slave: Nat Turner in American Memory (Houghton Mifflin, 2004). Hosted by the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights at the Univesrity of Arkansas, this competition recognizes works of scholarship and literature which extend our understanding of the root causes of bigotry and the range of options we as humans have in constructing alternative ways to share power.

Activities

Courses

Updated: Dec 3, 2012