Overview
I am a PhD Student in History at Cornell University. My work regards colonialism in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, and I am interested (thematically) in the history of empire, religion, and masculinity. My dissertation project, Modifying Men: Religion and Masculinity in Eastern Indonesia, 1870-1942, focuses on Dutch colonial categorization of religion and sexuality in Eastern Indonesia, specifically within the religiously diverse and multiethnic port cities of Ambon, Manado, and Ternate. My dissertation concerns the daily lived contestations and compromises between Christian and Muslim Indonesian men, increasingly categorically and geographically divided under Dutch colonial rule.
I am also completing a project on the horse trade in colonial Indonesia, which will highlight Dutch efforts to commodify particular breeds of horses from the islands of Sumbawa and Sumba for mass accumulation in administrative centers of the Indonesian archipelago, and the environmental and cultural impacts of the horse trade on the peoples and landscapes of Sumbawa and Sumba today.
Advisor: Eric Tagliacozzo