Nathan Elliot Marvin

Teaching Materials

Open Educational Resources

Illustrated portrait of Lislet Geoffroy

Freedom Deferred: Slavery, Resistance, & the Politics of Race in France’s Indian Ocean Colonies During the Age of Revolution

An open-access documentary reader on slavery, resistance, race, and revolution in the French Indian Ocean world. The collection brings together translated primary sources with historical introductions, images, and maps for use in undergraduate and graduate courses.

Open Freedom Deferred...

Portrait of Marie Félicité de Vallière

Arkansas Créole: Rediscovering a Lost Vernacular Landscape

An open educational resource exploring the French and Creole histories embedded in Arkansas’s landscape. Through maps, primary sources, images, and local histories, the project traces place names, migration, Indigenous and colonial encounters, and the persistence of Creole communities and cultural landscapes.

Open Arkansas Créole...

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Course Syllabi

Tabardin manuscript illustration

World History from 1500 (in person)

Detail from the illustrated manuscript, La Vie ou aventures de J.-B. Tabardin, ca. 1805, housed in the Carnegie Library of Curepipe, Mauritius. Memoirs of a Creole privateer. Original translation used as a primary source with students.

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Haitian stamp with the Unknown Maroon

World History from 1500 (asynchronous)

Haitian postage stamps depicting “the Unknown Maroon,” symbol of resistance to slavery. The Haitian Revolution features prominently in this course.

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Still from Visconti’s Senso

Modern Europe

Still from Senso (1954), film by Luchino Visconti. Film, opera, and propaganda posters are analyzed in this course.

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Atlantic History word cloud

Atlantic World and Beyond

Word cloud from a text-mining exercise based on the Oxford Bibliographies in Atlantic History. One of the goals of the course is to critically interrogate the field.

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Headstones of French-speaking families in Old St. Mary’s Cemetery beside historic Catholic church in Plum Bayou, Arkansas

Creole South

The course traces Creole histories across North America, the Caribbean, and beyond, connecting local to global stories.

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French Revolution in Assassin's Creed

Revolutions in World History

Screenshot from Assassin’s Creed: Unity. Students analyze game videos and cutscenes as part of their engagement with revolutionary history and popular memory.

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Bowen Law Library image

Global Perspectives on Race

Photograph from inside the Bowen Law Library’s special collections. Students examine original paperwork from the race-based freedom lawsuit of Abby Guy (1850s, Arkansas).

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Boston Athenaeum interior

Historian’s Craft (Undergraduate Methods)

Interior of the Boston Athenaeum private library (photo by instructor). Students explore critical approaches to archives and historical method.

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1793 document from Réunion

Historical Methods (Graduate)

Archival document from Réunion Island (1793) related to the “Ambroise Affaire,” which students study in depth in this graduate seminar.

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Map of Haitian Revolution diaspora impact

Haitian Revolution in World History

Original map depicting sites impacted by the Haitian Revolution in North America — including inspired revolts and refugee settlement. The global repercussions of the revolution are central to this course.

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Additional Teaching Resources

Mother Lange: A Haitian-American Educator

StoryMap highlighting the life and legacy of Mother Mary Lange, founder of the Oblate Sisters of Providence in Baltimore. Integrates spatial history, biography, and Black Catholic history.

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A Colonial “Return of Martin Guerre”?

In this methods course exercise, students analyze testimony in a colonial identity theft case. Inspired by Natalie Zemon Davis’s classic microhistory.

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Student Digital History Resource Guide

A curated and frequently updated set of tools, platforms, and archives to support students exploring digital history methods and public scholarship.

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Annotated Translation of Alfred Mercier’s On Pan-Latinism (1863)

An annotated translation of selections from Alfred Mercier’s 1863 pamphlet, with historical context and reading questions. Students examine how a white Louisiana Creole defended the Confederacy and slavery through appeals to race, religion, French imperial ambitions, and “Latin” civilization.

View primary source and exercise...

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