U.S. Naval Academy scholar to visit classes, meet with
students and faculty
CONWAY, Ark. (September 6, 2024) — Dr. Sharika
D. Crawford, Speedwell Professor of History at the United States Naval Academy,
will visit Hendrix College October 2-4 and will give her public lecture on
Thursday, October 3 at 7 p.m. in Lecture Hall B of the Mills Center for Social
Sciences (building 10 on the current campus map).
The title of Crawford’s lecture is “Sea Turtle
Extractive Industry in the Southwestern Caribbean: An Afterlife of an
Anglo-Spanish Imperial Borderland.” In addition to her public talk, she will make
class visits in the Department of Sociology/Anthropology and in the
Environmental Studies Program. Her time at Hendrix will also include meals with
small groups of students and faculty to create opportunities for in-depth
discussion.
In her lecture, Crawford will share the
under-told history of Indigenous as well as populations of full and partial
African ancestry in small islands and coastal communities who hunted sea
turtles, created a distinct maritime culture, and solidified national efforts
to assert control over water territories.
“Dr. Crawford’s research uses an innovative
combination of oral history and documents to explore ecological history,
waterscapes, borders, and the lives of turtles and the men who hunted them in
the Caribbean,” said Professor of Anthropology Dr. Stacey Schwartzkopf, whose Margaret
Berry Hutton Odyssey Professorship titled “Empire’s Legacies: Peoples, Places,
and Things in the Americas” is sponsoring Crawford’s visit. “We are very
fortunate to have the opportunity to bring her to Hendrix to teach our
students, faculty, and the community about this little-known portion of colonial
and post-colonial history.”
Before her current professorship, Crawford held
the U.S. Naval Academy’s Admiral Jay L. Johnson Professorship in Leadership and
Ethics. As a Fulbright U.S. Scholar, she studied in Bogotá, Colombia. She
earned a Ph.D. in History at the University of Pittsburgh, a Master of Arts in
Latin American Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a
Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from Kalamazoo College. Crawford’s teaching
topics have ranged from histories of modern Latin America and Brazil to race
and ethnicity in Latin America to perspectives on labor, policy, and the
environment through the lens of the Panama Canal.
Crawford’s book, The Last Turtlemen of the
Caribbean: Waterscapes of Labor, Conservation, and Boundary Making, was
published in 2020 by the University of North Carolina Press. The following
year, it earned an Honorable Mention for the Elsa Goveia Book Prize from the
Association of Caribbean Historians.
About Hendrix College
Founded in
1876, Hendrix College is featured in Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools
That Will Change the Way You Think About Colleges and celebrated among the
country’s leading liberal arts colleges for academic quality, engaged learning
opportunities and career preparation, vibrant campus life, and value. The
Hendrix College Warriors compete in 21 NCAA Division III sports. Hendrix has
been affiliated with the United Methodist Church since 1884. Learn more at www.hendrix.edu.
“… Through
engagement that links the classroom with the world, and a commitment to
diversity, inclusion, justice, and sustainable living, the Hendrix community inspires
students to lead lives of accomplishment, integrity, service, and joy.” —Hendrix College Statement of Purpose