Melissah J. Pawlikowski joined the Department of History at Kenyon in 2021. She is a historian of the Atlantic world specializing in early American history and its borderlands.  Her teaching and research explore questions pertaining to the economic origin and evolution of power, particularly as it relates to class, race, gender and sexuality. Beyond an expansive list of core U.S. history surveys and seminars she has also designed courses on themes from sustainability to LGBTQIA+ history. All of her courses are inclusive and center on a “history from below” perspective.

Pawlikowski’s research focuses periods of warfare or intense violence during the eighteenth century, the French and Indian War and the American Revolution specifically. Her work relates colonial violence to the processes of conflict resolution and mechanisms of power building through community formation and economic entanglements.  Her research has introduced two key additions to the early American narrative: the contact-conflict paradigm and her theory of interethnic power building.

Her first book manuscript project considers social and economic mobility during the American Revolution and the Early Republic through military service, farming, industrialization and entrepreneurship in the foundation and expansion of communities. Among her findings her research has uncovered is the construction of a forced breeding program of enslaved peoples and the use of black codes and prisons in the north to create new sources of slavery following gradual abolition and the outlawing of the Atlantic Slave Trade in the United States. Her second project redefined eighteenth century squatters in the Susquehanna River Valley and Ohio River Valley from land thieves and Indian killers to multiethnic communities of transient and dispossessed peoples. This study identified a network of around one hundred and fifty interethnic refugee communities and detailed the formation of the Delaware Indian Confederacy from a cross section of decimated Indian communities, landless Euro-Americans, free and enslaved African Americans.

Her additions to the scholarship on the North American borderlands stands out in part for her methodologies, theories, and insights she gained from her dual background in West and West Central African, the Caribbean, Latin and South American histories. 

Areas of Expertise

Early American History, Atlantic History, Borderland History, Native American History, African and African American History, History of Capitalism, Economic History, LGBT+ History, Sustainability Studies, Power Dynamics.

Education

2015 — Doctor of Philosophy from The Ohio State University

2007 — Master of Arts from Duquesne University

2005 — Bachelor of Arts from the University of Pittsburgh

Courses Recently Taught

The purpose of this course is to introduce students to United States history from the 12th century to the mid-19th century. Students will gain a more developed understanding of American history by examining the interactions among diverse cultures and people; the formation and use of power structures and institutions throughout the Colonial, Revolutionary and Antebellum eras; and the processes behind the "Americanization" of the North American continent. Central to this course is a comparison between two interpretations of American history: a Whiggish, or great American history, and the more conflict-centered Progressive interpretation. Not only will students gain a general knowledge of this time period, they also will understand the ways in which the past can be contextualized. Students are expected to understand both the factual basis of American history as well as the general interpretive frameworks underlying historical arguments. This counts toward the history requirement for the major. This course is the same as HIST 101D. This course must be taken as HIST 101D to count for the social science requirement. No prerequisite.

This course is a thematic survey of the United States from the end of the Civil War to the present. Students will examine the transformation of the United States from a rural, largely Protestant society into a powerful and culturally diverse urban/industrial nation. Topics will include constitutional developments, the formation of a national economy, urbanization and immigration. The course also will discuss political changes, the secularization of public culture, the formation of the welfare state, World War I, World War II, the Cold War, and the Vietnam War as well as suburbanization, the civil rights movement, women's and gay rights, and the late 20th-century conservative politics movement and religious revival. This counts toward the history requirement for the major. This course is the same as HIST 102D. This course must be taken as HIST 102D to count towards the social science requirement. No prerequisite.

The purpose of this course is to introduce students to United States history from the 12th century to the mid-19th century. Students will gain a more developed understanding of American history by examining the interactions among diverse cultures and people; the formation and use of power structures and institutions throughout the colonial, Revolutionary and antebellum eras; and the processes behind the "Americanization" of the North American continent. Central to this course is a comparison between two interpretations of American history; a Whiggish, or great American history, and the more conflict-centered Progressive interpretation. Not only will students gain a general knowledge of this time period, but they also will understand the ways in which the past can be contextualized. Students are expected to understand both the factual basis of American history as well as the general interpretive frameworks underlying historical arguments. This counts toward the premodern requirement for the major and minor. This course is the same as AMST 101D. This course must be taken as HIST 101D to count towards the social science requirement. No prerequisite.

This course is a thematic survey of the United States from the end of the Civil War to the present. Students will examine the transformation of the United States from a rural, largely Protestant society into a powerful and culturally diverse urban/industrial nation. Topics will include constitutional developments, the formation of a national economy, urbanization and immigration. The course also will discuss political changes, the secularization of public culture, the formation of the welfare state, World War I, World War II, the Cold War, and the Vietnam War as well as suburbanization, the civil rights movement, women's and gay rights, and the late 20th-century conservative politics movement and religious revival. This course is the same as AMST 102D. This must be taken as HIST 102D to count towards the social science requirement. This counts toward the modern requirement for the major and minor. No prerequisite.

In August 1619, "twenty and odd negars" were traded for food by the crew of a Dutch sailing vessel. That commercial transaction represented the first recorded incident of a permanent African presence in America. Over the next 146 years, this population of Africans would grow to create an African American population of over four million. The overwhelming majority of this population was enslaved. This course will be an examination of those enslaved millions and their free black fellows -- who they were, how they lived, and how the nation was transformed by their presence and experience. Particular attention will be paid to the varieties of African-American experience and how slavery and the presence of peoples of African descent shaped American social, political, intellectual and economic systems. Students will be presented with a variety of primary and secondary source materials; timely and careful reading of these sources will prepare students for class discussions. Students will be confronted with conflicting bodies of evidence and challenged to analyze these issues and arrive at conclusions for themselves. This counts toward the premodern and America/Europe requirement for the major and minor. Generally offered every year.

This is an introductory lecture and discussion course in the history of African Americans in the United States. Beginning with Emancipation, the course traces the evolution of black culture and identity and the continuing struggle for freedom and equality. Topics will include the tragedies and triumphs of Reconstruction, interracial violence, the Harlem Renaissance, Jazz, Blues and the Civil Rights and Black Power movements. Students will be presented with a variety of primary and secondary sources materials; timely and careful reading of these sources will prepare students for class discussions. Students will be confronted with conflicting bodies of evidence and challenged to analyze these issues and arrive at conclusions for themselves. Music and film will supplement classroom lectures and discussions. This counts toward the modern and Americas/Europe requirement for the major and minor. Generally offered every year.

This course surveys American Indian experience in North America from pre-Columbian America to the contemporary moment by "facing east from Indian country" in order to situate Indians’ experience within their own worlds, perspectives and values. American Indians were agents of change far more than simply victims of circumstance and oppression. By looking at American Indians as actors, settlers and thinkers, students will gain a more nuanced understanding of colonialism, expansion, ethnic diversity, hegemony and violence throughout North America. Topics include cultural diversity in pre-Columbian North America; pre- and postcolonial change; cosmology and creation; language; New World identities; slavery and violence; empires; political and spiritual dimensions of accommodation and resistance; borderlands and frontiers; race and removal; the Plains wars; assimilation; Red Power; self-determination; hunting and fishing rights and gaming. This course will highlight the fact that American Indians are intimately intertwined with the histories of various European colonial empires, African peoples and the United States, but also that American Indian peoples have distinct histories of their own that remain vibrant and whole to this day. This counts toward the modern requirement for the major and minor.

This course is a study of American Indian activism from the late 19th century to the present in order to understand the broader historical context of Red Power. It is designed to look beyond the myth that American Indian activism rode in on the coattails of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement and show that Native and non-Native activists had been fighting and campaigning on behalf of the Indian peoples throughout the entire century. The course will highlight the varying methods, intentions, successes and failures of the many American Indian activists and organizations that fought for Indian sovereignty. This counts toward the modern requirement for the major.

This seminar will look at the formation of the American republic. It will look at the prerevolutionary causes of the conflict, the revolution itself, the establishment of a new nation and the writing and ratification of the federal Constitution. The course will focus on political and constitutional issues but also will address social change, Native Americans, women and slavery. This counts toward the premodern requirement for the major and minor. Prerequisite: sophomore standing.