Dr. Oliver Charbonneau

Biography

Oliver Charbonneau is a historian specializing in the United States Empire during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His work explores the cultures of American colonialism in Southeast Asia and North America, focusing on themes such as militarized violence, labor, and the production of imperial knowledge. His book, 'Civilizational Imperatives: Americans, Moros, and the Colonial World,' examines the transimperial history of U.S. rule in the Muslim-majority Southern Philippines (1899-1940s). In this work, he argues for a global reading of the peripheralized space and explores topics such as the racialization of indigenous groups, transpacific mobilities of Moro individuals, and the pervasive role of fear and violence in colonial life. His book was published by Cornell University Press in 2020, with a Philippine edition following in 2021. Charbonneau's body of work has been recognized with the 2022 Stuart L. Bernath Lecture Prize from the Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations. He is currently engaged in several projects, including a co-edited volume titled 'Gospel Work and Money: Industrial Education Global Legacies,' and a monograph tentatively titled 'Mohonk: Progressive Origins of the American Empire.' He has taught at various universities in Canada before joining the University of Glasgow in 2019 and completed his PhD at the University of Western Ontario in 2016.

Research Interests

Experience