About Derek Litvak

Derek Litvak is a PhD candidate at the University of Maryland—College Park. His dissertation, "The Specter of Black Citizens: Race, Slavery, and Citizenship in the Early United States," examines how citizenship was used to both bolster the institution of slavery and exclude Black Americans from the body politic.

NBN Episodes hosted by Derek:

December 16, 2021

Race, Removal, and the Right to Remain

Samantha Seeley

Hosted by Derek Litvak

Samantha Seeley is the author of Race, Removal, and the Right to Remain: Migration and the Making of the United States, published by the University of…

December 15, 2021

Bonds of Empire

Lee B. Wilson

Hosted by Derek Litvak

Lee B. Wilson is the author of Bonds of Empire: The English Origins of Slave Law in South Carolina and British Plantation America, 1660-1783, publishe…

September 21, 2021

Hidden Laws

Robinson Woodward-Burns

Hosted by Derek Litvak

Robinson Woodward-Burns is the author of Hidden Laws: How the State Constitutions Stabilize American Politics, published by Yale University Press in 2…

September 14, 2021

Race Unequals

Teri A. McMurtry-Chubb

Hosted by Derek Litvak

Teri A. McMurtry-Chubb is the author of Race Unequals: Overseer Contracts, White Masculinities, and the Formation of Managerial Identity in the Planta…

June 3, 2021

Injury Impoverished

Nate Holdren

Hosted by Derek Litvak

Nate Holdren is the author of Injury Impoverished: Workplace Accidents, Capitalism, and Law in the Progressive Era, published by Cambridge University …

May 20, 2021

The Ledger and the Chain

Joshua D. Rothman

Hosted by Derek Litvak

Joshua Rothman’s The Ledger and the Chain: How Domestic Slave Traders Shaped America was published by Basic Books in 2021, and tells a sprawling histo…

May 19, 2021

Unfree Markets

Justene Hill Edwards

Hosted by Derek Litvak

Justene Hill Edwards is the author of Unfree Markets: The Slaves’ Economy and the Rise of Capitalism in South Carolina (Columbia University Press, 202…

December 14, 2020

The World Colonization Made

Brandon Mills

Hosted by Derek Litvak

Brandon Mills is the author of The World Colonization Made: The Racial Geography of Early American Empire, published by the University of Pennsylvania…

October 16, 2020

An Intimate Economy

Alexandra J. Finley

Hosted by Derek Litvak

Alexandra J. Finley is the author of An Intimate Economy: Enslaved Women, Work, and America’s Domestic Slave Trade, published by the University of Nor…

September 1, 2020

Free Justice

Sara Mayeux

Hosted by Derek Litvak

Sara Mayeux is the author of Free Justice: A History of the Public Defender in Twentieth-Century America, published by the University of North Carolin…

August 19, 2020

Contagions of Empire

Khary Oronde Polk

Hosted by Derek Litvak

Khary Oronde Polk is the author of Contagions of Empire: Scientific Racism, Sexuality, and Black Military Workers Abroad, 1898-1948, published by the …

August 18, 2020

Beneath the Backbone of the World

Ryan Hall

Hosted by Derek Litvak

Ryan Hall is the author of Beneath the Backbone of the World: Blackfoot People and the North American Borderlands, 1720-1877, published by the Univers…

August 17, 2020

Black Market

Aaron Carico

Hosted by Derek Litvak

On the eve of the Civil War, the estimated value of the U.S. enslaved population exceeded $3 billion--triple that of investments nationwide in factori…

July 27, 2020

Migrant Citizenship

Verónica Martínez-Matsuda

Hosted by Derek Litvak

Verónica Martínez-Matsuda about her book Migrant Citizenship: Race, Rights, and Reform in the U.S. Farm Labor Camp Program (University of Pennsylvania…

July 24, 2020

White Balance

Justin Gomer

Hosted by Derek Litvak

Justin Gomer is the author of White Balance: How Hollywood Shaped Colorblind Ideology and Undermined Civil Rights, published by the University of Nort…

June 15, 2020

How the Suburbs Were Segregated

Paige Glotzer

Hosted by Derek Litvak

Paige Glotzer is the author of How the Suburbs Were Segregated: Developers and the Business of Exclusionary Housing, 1890-1960, published by Columbia …

April 2, 2020

William’s Gang

Jeff Forret

Hosted by Derek Litvak

Jeff Forret is the author of William’s Gang: A Notorious Slave Trader and his Cargo of Black Convicts, published by Cambridge University Press in 2020…

March 16, 2020

Thomas Jefferson’s Education

Alan Taylor

Hosted by Derek Litvak

Alan Taylor is the author of Thomas Jefferson’s Education published by W. W. Norton & Company in 2019. Thomas Jefferson’s Education tells the stor…

March 12, 2020

Standard-Bearers of Equality

Paul J. Polgar

Hosted by Derek Litvak

Paul J. Polgar is the author of Standard-Bearers of Equality: America’s First Abolition Movement, published by University of North Carolina Press in 2…

February 5, 2020

Engines of Redemption

R. Scott Huffard, Jr.

Hosted by Derek Litvak

R. Scott Huffard Jr. is the author of Engines of Redemption: Railroads and the Reconstruction of Capitalism in the New South, published by the Univers…

January 30, 2020

Long Past Slavery

Catherine A. Stewart

Hosted by Derek Litvak

Catherine A. Stewart is the author of Long Past Slavery: Representing Race in the Federal Writers’ Project, published by the University of North Carol…

January 27, 2020

Reading These United States

Keri Holt

Hosted by Derek Litvak

Keri Holt is the author of Reading These United States: Federal Literacy in the Early Republic, 1776-1830, published by the University of Georgia Pres…

December 24, 2019

The Black Republic

Brandon R. Byrd

Hosted by Derek Litvak

Brandon R. Byrd is the author of The Black Republic: African Americans and the Fate of Haiti, published by the University of Pennsylvania Press in 201…

November 11, 2019

The INS on the Line

S. Deborah Kang

Hosted by Derek Litvak

Today I talked to S. Deborah Kang about her book The INS on the Line: Making Immigration Law on the US-Mexico Border, 1917-1954, published by Oxford U…