Dr. Christopher Bonner is an associate professor in the Department of History, specializing in African American history and nineteenth-century United States. Bonner’s first book, Remaking the Republic: Black Politics and the Creation of American Citizenship, centers free Black Americans in the legal transformations of the United States during the mid-nineteenth century. The book won the James Broussard Best First Book Prize from the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic.

He is currently at work on a project exploring how enslaved people navigated commercial networks in efforts to purchase their freedom in the early nineteenth century. Within the history department, Bonner teaches courses covering African American politics and culture; slavery and emancipation in the Atlantic world; the transformations of the United States during the nineteenth century; and race and ethnicity in early America. Outside of the classroom, you can find him reading and spending time exploring Washington, D.C. with friends.