CURRICULUM VITAE
MEGAN A. BLACK
EDUCATION
2015 Ph.D., American Studies, George Washington University
2011 M.A., American Studies, George Washington University
2009 B.A., English and Film Studies, Minor: History, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
ACADEMIC POSITIONS
2020-present Associate Professor of History, Department of History, MIT
2017-2020 Assistant Professor of International History, Department of International History, London School of Economics
2015-2017 Lecturer, Department of History, Harvard University
2014-2015 Lecturer, Department of American Studies, George Washington University
PUBLISHED MATERIALS
Books
2018 The Global Interior: Mineral Frontiers and American Power. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press. (360pp).
Awards:
2019 Winner of the George Perkins Marsh Prize for best book in Environmental History, American Society for Environmental Historians
2019 Winner of the Stuart L. Bernath Prize for best first book in the History of International Relations, Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations
2019 Winner of the W. Turrentine-Jackson Award for best first book on the History of the American West, Western History Association
2019 Winner of the British Association for American Studies Prize for best book
Reviewed in:
American Historical Review; Los Angeles Review of Books; Reviews in American History; Society and Space; Journal of Interdisciplinary History; Pacific Historical Review; Western Historical Quarterly; H-Diplo; H-Environment; International Journal of History & Ethics of Natural Sciences, Technology & Medicine
Articles in Refereed Journals
2019 “Prospecting the World: Landsat and the Search for Minerals in Space Age Globalization,” Journal of American History 106, no. 1 (June 2019): 97-120
2019 “Scene/Unseen: Mining for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre’s Critique of American and Capitalist Exploitation,” Modern American History 2, no. 1 (March 2019): 23-47
2016 “Interior’s Exterior: The State, Mining Companies, and Resource Ideologies in the Point Four Program,” Diplomatic History 40, no. 1 (Jan. 2016): 81-110
Chapters in Books
2020 “American Mineral Frontiers in the Twentieth Century,” A Companion to U.S. Foreign Policy, Colonial Era to the Present, ed. Christopher Dietrich (New York: Cambridge University Press): 925-941
Review Essays
2017 “Environmental Deadpan: New Scales and Sensations of Ecological Fallout,” American Quarterly 69:2. 397-409
2016 “American Indians and the History of U.S. Foreign Relations,” Diplomatic History 39:5 in H-Diplo, no. 620
Book Reviews
2021 “Review of The Postwar Origins of the Global Environment: How the United Nations Built Spaceship Earth. By Perrin Selcer.” H-Environment
2020 “Review of To Master the Boundless Sea: The US Navy, Marine Environment, and the Cartography of Empire. By Jason W. Smith,” Reviews in American History. 48:1. 56-62
2020 “Review of Rare Earth Frontiers: From Terrestrial Subsoils to Lunar Landscapes. By Julie Michelle Klinger,” Environmental History 25:2. 383-385
Other Publications – Non-Refereed
2018 “Appetite for Destruction? Making Sense of the Interior Department’s Request to Destroy Files,” Cambridge Core Blog: Modern American History, Nov. 5, 2018
2017 Megan Black, “Interior Imperialism: Fossil Fuels, American Expansion, and Rebel Park Rangers,” n+1, March 28, 2017
FELLOWSHIPS AND HONORS
2019-2020 US Foreign Policy and International Security Fellowship, John Sloane Dickey Center for International Understanding, Dartmouth College, New Hampshire
2018-2019 Certificate of Teaching Excellence, London School of Economics
2017 Ciriacy-Wantrup Postdoctoral Fellowship in Natural Resource Economics and Political Economy (finalist, withdrew), University of California, Berkeley, California
2015-2017 Postdoctoral Fellowship in Global American Studies, Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History, Harvard University
2016 Beckman Center Research Fellowship, Chemical Heritage Foundation
2016 Derek Bok Center for Undergraduate Education Teaching Award, Harvard University
2009-2015 Office of the Provost Academic Excellence Graduate Assistantship in American Studies, George Washington University
2014 Samuel Flagg Bemis Dissertation Grant, SHAFR
2014 Moody Research Grant, Lyndon B. Johnson Library
2013 Albert M. Greenfield Fellowship, Historical Society of Pennsylvania
2012 Research Travel Grant, Harry S. Truman Library
SEMINARS, COLLOQUIA, ETC.
March 2020 Chair/Comment, “New Directions in Transnational Environmental History,” American Society for Environmental Historians, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
January 2020 “The Global Interior: Prospecting and Protesting Mineral Frontiers,” invited talk at Governing America in a Global Era seminar, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA
January 2020 “Seeing Like a Satellite: Verticality, Simplification, and Aesthetics in Space Photography,” American Historical Association, New York City
December 2019 “The Global Interior: From Environmental Management to Environmental Justice,” invited talk at Department of History, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
November 2019 “The Global Interior: Prospecting and Protesting Mineral Frontiers since 1945,” Department of History, Yale University, New Haven, CT
October 2019 “The Global Interior: From Environmental Management to Environmental Justice,” invited talk at Energy and Resources Group, University of California, Berkeley, CA
April 2019 “The Global Interior: Mineral Frontiers and American Power,” Paul A. Olson Lecture, Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE
March 2019 “The Global Interior: Imagining and Extracting Minerals in the Projection of American Power,” invited Mergen-Palmer Lecture, Department of American Studies, George Washington University, Washington, DC
February 2019 “The Global Interior: Mineral Frontiers and American Power,” invited talk at the Department of History, University of California, Berkeley, CA
November 2018 “From Settler Colonialism to Global Power: The US Department of the Interior’s Pursuit of Minerals,” invited talk at the History Seminar, University of Stirling, Scotland, United Kingdom
April 2018 “The Closing of the Interior: Territory, Resources, and Settler Colonial Governance,” invited talk at the LSE-Columbia Double Degree Seminar, Columbia University, New York, NY
March 2018 “Prospecting the World: Landsat and the Quest for Third World Minerals, 1965-1979,” invited talk at Environmental Justice Seminar, Williams College, Williamstown, MA
January 2018 “‘One of the Nation’s Great Expansions’: The US Interior Department’s Quest for Oil in the Continental Shelf, 1946-1969,” American Historical Association, Washington, DC
January 2018 “Roundtable: Global Equality and Inequality,” American Historical Association, Washington, DC
December 2017 “Governing the Frontier: The U.S. Settler Colonial State and Indigenous Minerals across the World,” Sovereignty, Economy, and the Global Histories of Natural Resources Symposium, Centre for Economics and History, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
November 2017 “Continental Shelf Expansion: The United States’ Quest for Minerals and Territory, 1946-1969,” invited talk at the Institute for Historical Research, University of London, United Kingdom
June 2017 Chair/Comment, “Oceanic Governance Regimes and US Law in Global Perspective,” Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, Arlington, VA
October 2016 “African American Critiques of International Development,” Black History Month, London School of Economics
October 2016 “Prospecting the Final Frontier: Landsat and Natural Resources in the Third World,” invited talk at the Mellon Seminar in the Energy Humanities, Rice University, Houston, TX
March 2016 “View the World Anew: Landsat Satellites and Minerals in International Development,” American Society of Environmental Historians, Seattle, WA
March 2016 “An Outsider’s View: International and Global History,” invited talk at the Sixteenth Annual Harvard Graduate Student Conference on International History, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
November 2015 “A Far-Flung Interior: Territories, Strategic Minerals, and Equivocal Imperialism in the New Deal,” invited talk at the American Political History Institute, Boston University, Boston, MA
October 2015 “Oil Frontiers in Outer Space?: Geological Reconnaissance Satellites and the Global Energy Crisis,” American Studies Association, Toronto, ON, Canada
September 2015 “The Global Interior: America’s Quest for Mineral Frontiers in the Modern World Order,” invited talk at the Charles Warren Center, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
September 2015 “Rethinking Landsat: The American State and Big Oil in the Space Race,” Science and Technology Studies Colloquium, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
June 2015 “‘Bring Space down to Earth’: The Interior Department and Earth Resources Satellites in USAID,” Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, Arlington, VA
April 2014 “‘The Legislative Cavalry’: The Indian OPEC and the Conservative Backlash against Civil Rights,” Organization of American Historians, Atlanta, GA
September 2012 “The Interior Department’s ‘Exterior’: Promoting U.S. Stewardship of Energy Resources Abroad,” Petrocultures Conference, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AL, Canada
Panels Organized
June 2019 “Undermining Sovereignty: Post-1970s Indigenous & Environmental Activism against Extractive Firms across Settler States,” Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, Arlington, VA
November 2018 “Institutional Emergence Roundtable: The Interior Department,” American Studies Association, Atlanta, GA
March 2017 “The Closing of the Interior: The Shared History of Expansion and Environmental Management,” American Society for Environmental Historians, Chicago, IL
June 2016 “Replacing the Imperialism of the Past: Race, Minerals, and the Rise of Modernization,” Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, San Diego, CA
November 2013 “Road to Depletion: Minerals, the State, and Humphrey Bogart in the Era of ‘Abundance,’” American Studies Association, Washington, DC
November 2012 “Guardians of ‘Global’ Resources: Visualizing Energy and Empire in U.S. Government-Sponsored Film, 1949-1956,”
American Studies Association, San Juan, Puerto Rico
PROFESSIONAL SERVICE
Co-Chair of the Programming Committee (2020-present), SHAFR
Co-Chair of the Best Book Prize Committee (2019-present), BAAS Member of the Programming Committee (2019-present), SHAFR
Co-Chair of the Marilyn Blatt Young Fellowship Committee (2015-2018), SHAFR
Member of the Warren Center Postdoctoral Fellowship Committee (2016-2017), Harvard Universit
Co-Chair (2014-2015), Annette Kolodny Environmental Prize Committee, ASA
Co-Chair (2013-2015), American Studies Association Students’ Committee, ASA
Reviews for: Environmental History; Reviews in American History; American Quarterly; H-Environment; Journal of Southern History; H-Diplo
Evaluations for: Modern American History; Cold War History; American Quarterly
LIST OF THESES SUPERVISED
M.A. or M.S.
2018-2019 Patrick Flaherty, “'Unpopular Front against the Moscow Trials: The Dewey Commission and the Development of American Anti- Stalinism” - Advisor
2018-2019 Kevin Schilling, “His First Act: The History of Grover Cleveland’s Anti-Imperialism, Public-Private Partnership, and the International Political Economy of the Proposed Nicaragua Canal, 1884-1896” - Advisor
2018-2019 Rachel Di Silvio, “Mediating Sanctuary: Mayoral Impact on Sanctuary Policy in San Francisco and Los Angeles, 1981-1993” - Advisor
2018-2019 Agathe Laurent, “The lead-up to the 1992 Earth Summit and its Implications for the French Business Sector” - Advisor
2018-2019 Clio Simpson, “Relationship between the Aboriginal and Settler Australians” - Advisor
2018-2019 Henry Wisbey-Broom, “Parks, policy and preservation: Northern Rhodesian Wildlife Policy 1924-1939” - Advisor
2018-2019 Francesca Humi, “Discipline in the Philippines/Disciplining the Philippines through American (Neo)colonial Regimes” - Advisor
Michael Hendricks, “Push and Pull: Philip Habib and Solving the 1982 Beirut Siege” - Advisor
2017-2018 Marc Smith, “Leitmotifs of U.S. Labor’s Cold Warriors: The AFL-CIO’s Anti-Communism and Democracy Promotion during the Late Cold War” - Advisor
2017-2018 Dominique Vletter, “The Taiwan Tug-of-War: Richard Nixon's Motives for Rapproachement with China, 1969-1972” - Advisor
2017-2018 William Parish, “Sovereign Extent: Infrastructure Power, U.S. Spatial Formations, and Indigenous Diplomacy” - Advisor
2017-2018 Cate Homlish, “Extraordinary Women: Gender, Patriarchy and the Special Operations Executive” - Advisor
2017-2018 Ronald Rabena, “Up in Arms: The United States and the Utility of Weapons in Guatemala, 1952-1954” - Advisor
2017-2018 Iris Kim, “Views of the Open Door: US-PRC Remote Sensing Operation, 1978-1988” - Advisor