Maria R. MontalvoAssistant Professor

Maria R. Montalvo, Assistant Professor (B.A., University of Texas at Austin, 2012; M.A., Rice University, 2014; Ph.D., Rice University, 2018). American Legal History; African American History; 19th Century American History; History of Slavery and Capitalism.

Maria R. Montalvo is a historian of slavery, capitalism, and the law in the nineteenth-century United States. Her research interests center on the lived experiences of enslaved individuals as well as the everyday business of slavery and its lingering archival consequences. Her current book project, tentatively titled “The Archive of the Enslaved: Power, Enslavement, and the Production of the Past,” is a legal history of slavery and capitalism that builds on her analysis of thousands of court records from antebellum New Orleans to explore the legal, rhetorical, and archival strategies enslavers employed to exploit, historicize, and commodify enslaved individuals.

Education

• B.A., University of Texas at Austin, 2012
• M.A., Rice University, 2014
• Ph.D., Rice University, 2018

Interests

• American Legal History
• African American History
• 19th Century American History
• History of Slavery and Capitalism