Shannon Eaves

Associate Professor

Address: Maybank Hall 326
Office Hours: TR 11:00-12:15 & by appointment.
Phone: 843.953.1420
E-mail: eavessc@cofc.edu


Shannon C. Eaves earned her Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and currently serves as an Associate Professor of African American History here at the College of Charleston. She is a specialist in 19th century U.S. History, African American History, and Slavery and Gender in the Antebellum South. Her forthcoming book, Sexual Violence and American Slavery: The Making of a Rape Culture in the Antebellum South, will be published by UNC Press. This study examines how the rape and sexual exploitation of enslaved women created a rape culture that was woven into the very fabric of antebellum society, influencing daily life for both the enslaved and enslavers. Eaves has been awarded postdoctoral research fellowships from the American Association of University Women and Rutgers University. At the College, she serves on the executive board for the Center for the Study of Slavery in Charleston and the Committee on Commemoration and Landscapes.  


Education

Ph.D. in U.S. History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2015

M.A. in U.S. History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2010

M.A. in Teaching, University of South Carolina, 2005 

B.A. in Journalism and Mass Communication, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2003


Courses Taught

Comparative Slavery in the Americas 

African American History to 1865

African American History since 1865

Civil War and Reconstruction 

United States History to 1865

United States History since 1865

History of the New South: 1865-present


Honors and Awards

Dr. Eaves has been awarded fellowships from the Rutgers Center for Cultural Analysis, Africana Research Center at Pennsylvania State University, Library Company of Philadelphia, Department of History at North Carolina State University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Graduate School, as well as numerous research grants. 


Publications

Illicit Intercourse: How the Sexual Exploitation of Enslaved Women Shaped the Antebellum South (In progress)

“‘The Greater Part of Slaveholders Are Licentious Men’: Articulating of a Sexual Exploitation Consciousness in the Antebellum South,” Expanding the Boundaries of Black Intellectual History(Northwestern University Press, forthcoming)