Liana-Beatrice Valerio
About Me
PhD graduate in History, co-supervised by Professor Tim Lockley & Dr Camillia Cowling.
Thesis title: 'Scripts of Confidence and Supplication: Fear as the Personal and Political Among the Elite Male Slaveholders of South Carolina and Cuba, 1820 – 1850'
My Research
The emotions of elite white male slaveholders evade scholarship that examines those men within the limiting confines of hegemonic masculinity. Their fear of rebellion among the people they kept enslaved is the emotion most commonly remarked upon by scholars, but the historical tendency to depict that fear among the slaveholders of the U.S. South as having been both constant and ubiquitous belies the rarity of written examples of masculine fear in the archive, specifically in the case of South Carolina. Contrastingly, in Cuba, slaveholders on the island frequently voiced their fear of insurrection. My thesis interrogates that disparity, questioning the social and political factors that contributed to creating speech conventions that silenced fear in South Carolina, but amplified it in Cuba, adding substance to the historical account of white fear as it operated within the context of racial enslavement.
Conference Presentations
'Emotional Worlds of the Slaveholding Atlantic'
Multiple Atlantic Worlds
Summer Academy of Atlantic History, Upper Bavaria, Germany, August 2019
‘If my saying that I feel a little fussed should make you uneasy, I shall not tell you the whole truth again.’ Emotional Reticence Among Slaveholding Gentlemen’
Gendered Emotions in History, University of Sheffield, June 2018
‘Duro es confesarlo…’ The Emotional Undercurrents, and Comparative Importance, of Cuban Slaveholder Candour'
ACH @ 50: Continuity, Change and Challenge
Association of Caribbean Historians, Barbados, June 2018
‘Our fathers’ minds are dead, and we are governed by our mothers’ spirits.’ Nationalism & Emotional Regimes in Proslavery Arguments
The Masculine Worlds of Race and Power: Objects, Practices and Emotions in Colonial and Post-Colonial Societies in the Long Nineteenth Century
University of Warwick, May 2018
‘Men with the front of Caesar, but a woman’s heart.’ Manifestations of Fear among the South Carolinian and Cuban Slave-holding Elite, 1820-1850’
Emotions of Cultures/Cultures of Emotions: Comparative Perspectives
Society for the History of Emotions, Australian Research Council, Perth, Australia, December 2017
‘Questioning The Emotions, Bravado And Masculinity Of The South Carolina Slave-Holding Elite, 1820-1850’
BrANCH Annual Conference, University of Warwick, October 2017
‘Cuba en el Mundo de la Esclavitud: Diálogos de Confianza y Dudas Entre los Dueños Elites de Cuba, 1820 – 1850’ Cuba en el Mundo y el Mundo en Cuba
Instituto de Investigación Cultural Juan Marinello, Havana, Cuba, July 2017
'Exploring the Masculinity of the South Carolina Slaveholding Elite, 1820 – 1850’
Rethinking Gender: New Perspectives and Future Directions, Royal Holloway, June 2017
Funding and Awards
Gad Heuman Travel Bursary, June 2017 (Yesu Persaud Centre for Caribbean Studies)
Peter Parish Memorial Fund, June 2017 (BrANCH)
Warwick History Department Studentship, October 2015 - March 2019
Fellowships
Humanities Research Centre Doctoral Fellowship, 2017 - 2018
Conferences Organised
The Masculine Worlds of Race and Power: Objects, Practices and Emotions in Colonial and Post-Colonial Societies in the Long Nineteenth Century (5th May 2018)
https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/hrc/confs/cpcs/
Teaching
The Rise and Fall of American Slavery, 1607-1865 (2018/19) Durham University
https://www.dur.ac.uk/faculty.handbook/archive/module_description/?year=2016&module_code=HIST1611
North America: Themes and Problems (2017/18) Warwick University
https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/cas/undergraduate/modules/am102a/
Academic Background
2015 - 2019 University of Warwick, (PhD) History
2014 - 2015 University of Oxford, St Antony's College, (MSt) U.S. History
2009 - 2013 University of Warwick, BA (Hons) History, Literature and Cultures of the Americas
