Dr. Erin McCullugh is a social historian of Latin America and the Caribbean whose research focuses on slavery, gender, and sexuality in nineteenth-century Brazil. She is currently working on a book manuscript titledThe Libidinous Commerce: Race, Sexuality, and Slavery in Rio deJaneiro, 1850-1888, that examines the intersection of gender, intimate labor, and slavery in nineteenth-century Rio deJaneiro, Brazil. This research examines both the seen and unseen intimate labor performed by enslaved women in Rio deJaneiro to illustrate how the urban environment presented distinct opportunities to commodify and exploit Black female sexuality along a wide spectrum ranging from prostitution to concubinage to wet-nursing.
Erin's research on the lives of African and Africa-descended women is reflected in her teaching interests that include the history of Brazil; race and gender in Latin America; the Black Atlantic World; comparative slavery and emancipation in the Americas and Caribbean; Africa and the transatlantic slave trade; sexual economies of the Atlantic; and the history of gender and sexuality in the Atlantic World.
