Matt D. Childs

Matt D. Childs "started teaching at the University of South Carolina in the Fall of 2009. Before joining the History Department at USC, Childs taught at Florida State University from 2001-2008. His primary research and teaching interests are Latin American, Caribbean, and Atlantic history with a particular emphasis on the importance of understanding the historical legacies of slavery and racism in shaping the modern world.

"Professor Childs is the author of The 1812 Aponte Rebellion in Cuba and the Struggle against Atlantic Slavery (2006), which was a finalist for the 2007 Frederick Douglass Book Prize given by Yale University’s Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery Resistance and Abolition. Matt Childs has co-edited with Toyin Falola The Yoruba Diaspora in the Atlantic World (2005) and The Changing Worlds of Atlantic Africa:  Essay in Honor or Robin Law (2009). Childs served as an Associate Editor for the 6 volume Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture (2008).  Professor Childs has published articles in The Journal of Latin American Studies, The Americas, The Historian, The History Workshop Journal, and the Latin American Research Review. Childs has received research grants from the Social Science Research Council, the Ford Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Fulbright-Hays Program, and other agencies to conduct research in Cuba, Spain, Great Britain, and the United States." CV