Trevor Burnard completes successful fellowship at Monticello

Awarded by the International Center for Jefferson Studies (ICJF), the fellowship program at Monticello promotes research of Thomas Jefferson's life and times.

ERCC Co-Director and Lead Researcher Professor Trevor Burnard has recently completed a highly successful three-month fellowship at Monticello, Virginia, the former home of Thomas Jefferson and now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Overseen by Professor Andrew O'Shaughnessy, the ICJF fellowship program offers visiting academics the chance to consult with Monticello scholars and librarians and to use the outstanding resources of the Jefferson Library and the University of Virginia libraries.

Professor Burnard used his time at Monticello to complete the proofs for three books and to finish nine articles and book chapters. Two of these books - The Atlantic in World History, 1490-1830 (Bloomsbury) and Jamaica in the Age of Revolution (University of Pennsylvania Press) - will be published in early 2020 and a third, Britain in the Wider World, 1603-1800 (Routledge), will be published this December.

Professor Burnard also gave several talks while based at Monticello, including a presentation to the Early American Seminar of the University of Virginia (UVA), a lecture to first-year history students at UVA, and a talk for Virginia Public Media introducing the final season of the popular BBC television series, Poldark.

Residency at Monticello during the fall of 2019 also allowed Professor Burnard to make significant progress on a book he is co-authoring with Andrew O'Shaughnessy on the Imperial History of the American Revolution. According to Professor Burnand, 'the chance to do a month of uninterrupted reading on major books on imperial history in the period immediately before the American Revolution, using the excellent resources of the Robert H. Smith Jefferson Library, [was] an immense privilege'. Professors Burnard and O'Shaughnessy are looking forward to submitting a proposal for their book in the coming months.

In Professor Burnard's words, it was 'a very special three months' fellowship'.

More Information

ER-CC@unimelb.edu.au