
Scot A. French, Ph.D.
Scot A. French is a digital public historian specializing in the
study of cultural landscapes and sites of memory associated with 19th-
and 20th-century African American and Southern history. He is author of The Rebellious Slave: Nat Turner in American Memory (Houghton Mifflin, 2004) and lead author (with Craig Barton and Peter Flora) of Booker T. Washington Elementary School and Segregated Education in Virginia (National Park Service, 2007).
He has contributed essays to several edited volumes, including Jeffersonian Legacies, ed. Peter S. Onuf (University of Virginia Press, 1993); Media, Culture, and the Modern African American Freedom Struggle, ed. Brian Ward (University Press of Florida, 2001); Pride Overcomes Prejudice: A History of Charlottesville’s African American School (JSAAHC, 2013); and Marked, Unmarked, Remembered: A Geography of American Memory, eds. Andrew Lichtenstein and Alex Lichtenstein (West Virginia University Press, 2017).
A
film based on his research, "That World is Gone: Race and Displacement
in a Southern Town," won Audience Favorite, Best Short Documentary, at
the Virginia Film Festival (2010). That same year, he received the
University of Virginia's Black Community Advocate Award from the Black
Student Alliance, Black Leadership Institute, and the U.Va. chapter of
the NAACP.
French received his Ph.D. in History from the
University of Virginia in 2000. As associate director of UVA’s Carter G.
Woodson Institute (1997-2006), he co-directed the Ford
Foundation-funded Center for the Study of Local Knowledge and continued
its work as director of the Virginia Center for Digital History
(2006-2010).
Today, at the University of Central Florida, he is
an Associate Professor of History, Director of Public History, and Associate Director of the Center for Humanities and Digital Research.
He is a core faculty member in UCF's Texts and Technology Ph.D. program
and a founding member and chair of the Florida Digital Humanities
Consortium (fldh.org). He was recently appointed to represent the College of Arts & Humanities on the University's Strategic
Planning Council.
French serves on a number of academic advisory boards, including:
- The American Archive of Public Broadcasting Scholar Advisory Committee (2018 -)
- State of Florida Historic Marker Council (2018 - )
- The Zora Neale Hurston Festival of Arts
& Culture Academics Committee (2015 - )
- The University of
Virginia's President's Commission on the University in the Age of Segregation (2018 - )
- The University of
Virginia's President's Commission on Slavery and the University National Advisory Board (2015 - 2018)
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
Selected Publications
Books
- Scot A. French, The Rebellious Slave: Nat Turner in American Memory (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2004)
Films
- Scot A. French, Hannah Brown Ayers, and Lance Warren, That World is Gone: Race & Displacement in a Southern Town (Field Studio, 2010). Winner, Audience Favorite Award for Best Short Documentary, Virginia Film Festival, Nov. 4-7, 2010.
Edited Collections
- Scot A. French, "VisualEyes This: Using Visualization Tools to Engage Students in Historical Research and Digital Humanities R&D," in Quick Hits for Teaching with Digital Humanities: Successful Strategies from Award-Winning Teachers, eds. Christopher J. Young, Michael Morrone, Thomas C. Wilson, and Emma Annette Wilson (Indiana University Press, October 2020).
- Scot A. French, "Cabin Pond," in Marked, Unmarked, Remembered: A Geography of American Memory, eds, Andrew Lichtenstein and Alex Lichtenstein (West Virginia University, 2017): 114-117.
- Scot A. French, “African American Civic Activism and the Making of Jefferson High School, 1865-1926,” in Pride Overcomes Prejudice: A History of Charlottesville’s African American School (Charlottesville, Va.: Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, 2013): 31-72.
- Scot A. French, “Mau-Mauing the Filmmakers: Should Black Power Take the Rap for Killing ‘Nat Turner,’ the Movie?” in Media, Culture, and the Modern African American Freedom Struggle, ed. Brian Ward (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2001): 233-254.
- Scot A. French and Edward L. Ayers, “The Strange Career of Thomas Jefferson: Race and Slavery in American
Memory, 1943-1993,” in Peter S. Onuf, ed., Jeffersonian Legacies (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1993): 418-45.
Articles/Essays
- Scot A. French, “Notes on the Future of Virginia: Visualizing a
40-Year Conversation on Race and Slavery in the Correspondence of
Jefferson and Short,” Current Research in Digital History, Vol. 1, No. 1
(2018). http://crdh.rrchnm.org/essays/v01-15-notes-on-the-future-of-virginia/
- Scot A. French, "Social Preservation and Moral Capitalism in the
Historic Black Township of Eatonville, Florida: A Case Study of
'Reverse Gentrification,'" Change Over Time, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Spring
2018): 54-72.
- David Staley, Scot French, and Bill Ferster, "Visual Historiography: Visualizing 'The Literature of a Field,'" Journal of Digital Humanities, Vol. 3, No. 1 (Spring 2014).
- Scot A. French, "The Confessions of Nat Turner, 1831” and “The Confessions of Nat Turner, 1967,” Encyclopedia Virginia (Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, 2009).
- Scot A. French, “What is Social Memory?” Southern Cultures 2 (Fall
1995): 9-18.
Book Reviews
- Scot A. French, review of Booker T. Washington in American Memory, by Kenneth M. Hamilton (University of
Illinois Press, 2017), American Historical Review, Vol. 123, No. 5 (December 2018): 1697–1698.
- Scot A. French, review of The Land Shall Be Deluged in Blood: A New History of the Nat Turner Revolt,
by Patrick H. Breen (Oxford University Press, 2016).
Journal of American History, Vol. 104, No. 1 (June 2017): 185-186.
- Scot A. French, review of The Birth of a Nation, directed by Nate Parker (Fox Searchlight Pictures, 2016). The Public Historian, Vol. 39, No. 2 (May 2017): 99-103.
- Scot A. French, review of Nat Turner and the Rising in Southampton County, by David F. Allmendinger Jr. (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014). Journal of American History, Vol. 102, No. 2 (Dec. 2015): 555-556.
- Scot A. French, review of Bourbon Street: A History (Louisiana State University Press, 2014), by Richard Campanella. Journal of Southern History, Vol. 81, No. 4 (Nov. 2015): 960-961.
- Scot A. French, review of Sites of Slavery: Citizenship and Racial Democracy in the Post-Civil Rights Imagination, by Salamishah Tillet. Journal of American History, Vol. 100, No. 1 (Mar. 2013): 301-302.
- Scot A. French, review of The Horrible Gift of Freedom: Atlantic Slavery and the Representation of Emancipation, by Marcus Wood. Journal of American History, Vol. 97, No. 4 (Mar. 2011): 1189.
- Scot A. French, review of Defining Moments: African American Commemoration and Political Culture in the South, 1863–1913, by Kathleen Ann Clark. Journal of American History, Vol. 93, No. 3 (Dec. 2006): 879-880.
- Scot A. French, review of Foul Means: The Formation of a Slave Society in Virginia, 1660-1740, by Anthony S. Parent. Journal of Social History, Vol. 39, No. 2 (Winter 2005): 556-558.
Miscellaneous Publications
- Scot A. French, Craig Barton, and Peter Florida, Booker T. Washington Elementary School and Segregated Education in Virginia (Washington, D.C.: Department of Interior, 2007).
Awards
2017 Winter Park Magazine "Most Influential People" Award for work as Public Historian
2014 Burke Brown Steppe Chapter, Afro-American Historical and
Genealogical Society of Virginia, Award for Outstanding Service to the
Community
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 University of Arkansas, this
competition recognizes works of scholarship and literature that "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."
Courses
Course Number |
Course |
Title |
Mode |
Date and Time |
Syllabus |
20818 |
AFA3930 |
Special Topics |
World Wide Web (W) |
|
Unavailable |
No Description Available |
11464 |
AMH4644 |
Viewing Amer His Twentieth Cen |
Video Strmng (V1) COVD DL exmp |
M 03:00 PM - 04:15 PM |
Unavailable |
No Description Available |
11093 |
HIS4944 |
Internship in Public History |
World Wide Web (W) |
|
Unavailable |
No Description Available |
11094 |
HIS4944 |
Internship in Public History |
World Wide Web (W) |
|
Unavailable |
No Description Available |
Course Number |
Course |
Title |
Mode |
Date and Time |
Syllabus |
91922 |
AMH3402 |
History of the South to 1865 |
World Wide Web (W) |
|
Unavailable |
No Description Available |
80479 |
HIS4944 |
Internship in Public History |
World Wide Web (W) |
|
Unavailable |
No Description Available |
81528 |
HIS4944 |
Internship in Public History |
World Wide Web (W) |
12:00 AM - 12:00 AM |
Unavailable |
No Description Available |
Course Number |
Course |
Title |
Mode |
Session |
Date and Time |
Syllabus |
61847 |
AMH3403 |
His of South Since 1865 |
World Wide Web (W) |
B |
|
Unavailable |
No Description Available |
50642 |
HIS4944 |
Internship in Public History |
Face to Face Instruction (P) |
C |
12:00 AM - 01:00 AM |
Unavailable |
No Description Available |
51230 |
HIS4944 |
Internship in Public History |
Face to Face Instruction (P) |
C |
12:00 AM - 12:00 AM |
Unavailable |
No Description Available |
51357 |
HIS4944 |
Internship in Public History |
Face to Face Instruction (P) |
B |
|
Unavailable |
No Description Available |
51393 |
HIS4944 |
Internship in Public History |
Face to Face Instruction (P) |
A |
|
Unavailable |
No Description Available |
51394 |
HIS4944 |
Internship in Public History |
World Wide Web (W) |
C |
|
Unavailable |
No Description Available |
Updated: Oct 7, 2020