Sharon Block

Picture of Sharon Block
Professor, History
School of Humanities
Associate Vice Chancellor for Equity and Faculty Development
Ph.D., Princeton University, 1995, History
Master of Arts/Bachelor of Arts, University of Pennsylvania, 1990, History
University of California, Irvine
320 Krieger Hall
Mail Code: 3275
Irvine, CA 92697
Research Interests
race, history of sexuality, rape and sexual harassment, gender, African American history, history of the body, colonial America, Native American history, computational data mining, digital humanities, equity and inclusion in Academia, pedagogy
Academic Distinctions
N.E.H. Long-term Fellowship, Library Company of Philadelphia (2022-2023)
Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University (2020-2021)
N.E.H. Long-term Fellowship, Library Company of Philadelphia (2020-2021, declined)
Sabbatical Fellow, McNeil Center for Early American Studies, University of Pennsylvania (2020-2021, declined)
N.E.H. Short-term Fellowship, LancasterHistory (2020)
UCI Chancellor’s Fellow (2016-2019)
UC-Historically Black Colleges and Universities Initiative Award (2011-2012)
UCI CORCLR Multi-Investigator Research Grant (2006)
UCI Academic Senate Distinguished Assistant Professor Award for Teaching (2003)
University of California, Irvine Humanities Center Research Grant (2000-2001)
Henry E. Huntington Library Short Term Research Fellowship (Aug-Sept 1997)
N.E.H. and Postdoctoral Fellow, Institute of Early American History and Culture (1995-1997)
John Nicholas Brown Center for American Studies Fellowship (1995)
American Historical Association Littleton-Griswold Research Grant (1994)
Woodrow Wilson Women’s Studies Dissertation Research Grant (1994)
Mellon Fellowship in the Humanities (1990-1995)
Phil Beta Kappa (1990)
Publications
“Doing Justice with Rachel,” William and Mary Quarterly 80:4 (October 2023): 715-726.
"Rewriting the Rape of Rachel: Historical Methods, Historical Justice," William and Mary Quarterly 80:4 (October 2023): 649-676.
“Finding Enslaved and Free(d) People in Narratives of Early American Sexual Violence.” Journal of Slavery and Data Preservation 4, no. 1 (2023) and associated database.
"The rape of Ukraine," NBC News, April 15, 2022.
“Annotated Revisiting of ‘What, Where, When and Sometimes Why: Data Mining Two Decades of Women’s History Abstracts,’” Journal of Social History Supplement Mellon Foundation Project in Modeling Digital Humanities (June 2021).
“Graduate Pedagogy at the Intersection of Colonial Histories and Digital Methods,” Special Issue: Digital Methods/Empire Histories, Journal of World History, (June 2021).
“Sex, Race, and Feminist Connection,” Public Books (Summer 2021).
“Yes, Student Reviews of Classroom Teaching Have Value,” Inside Higher Education, March 17, 2021.
“Rethinking Time, Place, and Purpose: Histories of Indigenous North America, the Atlantic Slave Trade, and African Diaspora,” Reviews in American History 49.1 (Spring 2021): 10-22.
“Erasure, Misrepresentation and Confusion: Shortcomings of JSTOR Topics on Women’s and Race Histories,” Digital Humanities Quarterly 14:1 (Spring 2020).
“#DigEarlyAm: Reflections on Digital Humanities and Early American Studies,” William and Mary Quarterly 76:4 (October 2019): 611-648.
Colonial Complexions: Race and Bodies in Eighteenth-Century America. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018.
Can We Do Deep Research from a Laptop? Penn Press Blog May 2018.
"Defining Sexes, Desire and Heterosexuality in Colonial British America," Heterosexual Histories edited by Rebecca Davis and Michele Mitchell, (New York: NYU Press, 2021).
"Reconstituting Archives of Violence and Silence in Early American Women's History,"
Journal of Women's History (30:1 Spring 2018), 154-162.
“Sexual Violence in American History,” Oxford Handbook of American Women’s and Gender History, Ellen Hartigan-O’Connor and Lisa Materson, eds. (Oxford University Press, 2018).
“Early American Bodies: Race, Sex and Beauty,” Connexions: Histories of Race and Sex in North America, ed. Jim Downs, Jennifer Brier and Jennifer L. Morgan (University of Illinois Press, 2016).
"Making Meaningful Bodies: Physical Appearance in Colonial Writings,” Early American Studies 12:3 (November 2014): 524-547.
Major Problems in American Women's History, ed. Sharon Block, Ruth Alexander and Mary Beth Norton (Cengage, 2013).
"Taking Over or Just Undertaking?: A Quantitative Overview of American Women’s History,” Major Problems in American Women's History (Cengage, 2013), 18-23.
“What, Where, When and Sometimes Why: Data Mining Women’s History Abstracts, 1985-2005,” Journal of Women’s History, 23:1 (Spring 2011), 81-109 [with David Newman].
“Probabilistic Topic Decomposition of an Eighteenth-century Newspaper,” Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (Winter 2005/2006) [Co-written with David J. Newman].
“Rape in the American Revolution: Process, Aftermath, and Public Recreation,” Sexual Violence in Conflict Zones: From the Ancient World to the Era of Human Rights, ed. Lisa Heineman, (University of Pennsylvania Press, Human Rights Series, 2011), 25-38.
Rape and Sexual Power in Early America (OIEAHC Imprint, University of North Carolina Press, 2006).
"Bringing Rapes to Court: Women’s Courage, Secrets, and Social Decisions," Common-place: the Interactive Journal of Early American Life 3:3 (April 2003).
"Rape without Women: Print Culture and the Politicization of Rape, 1765–1815" Journal of American History 89 (Dec 2002).
“Clio in Search of Eros: Redefining Sexualities in Early America,” William and Mary Quarterly 60:1 (January 2003), 5-12. [Co-written with Kathleen Brown]
"Early American Sexuality: Race, Colonialism, Power and Culture", Radical History Review 82 (Winter 2002).
“Rape and Race in Colonial American Newspapers, 1728-1776,” Journalism History 27:4 (Winter 2001-2002), 146-155.
"Lines of Color, Sex, and Service: Comparative Sexual Coercion in Early America" in Sex, Love, Race: Crossing Boundaries in North American History edited by Martha Hodes. New York: New York University Press, 1998.
Professional Societies
Elected Council Member, American Antiquarian Society
Last updated
08/15/2024