Christian Koot, Ph.D.

Professor and Department Chair

Name

Contact Info

Phone:
410-704-3934
Office:
LA 4210F
Email:
ckoot@towson.edu
Hours:
Monday: 11:00am - 12:00pm
Tuesday: 11:00am - 12:00pm
Other Hours Available by Appointment

Education

Ph.D., University of Delaware, 2005

Areas of Expertise

U.S. in the Colonial and Early Modern Periods; History of the Atlantic World; Economic and Commercial History; History of Cartography

Biography

Christian J. Koot joined the History Department in 2007 after receiving his PhD from the University of Delaware. He is the author of two books,  (NYU Press, 2011) and  (NYU Press, 2018). A Biography of a Map in Motion focuses on the production and consumption of one extraordinary and now rare transatlantic object, a map of the seventeenth-century Chesapeake, and the colonial merchant, planter, and diplomat who created it, Augustine Herrman.

Professor Koot鈥檚 research interests focus on the United States in the Colonial and Early Modern periods, the history of the Atlantic world and the Caribbean, economic and commercial history, imperial history, and the History of Cartography. At Towson University he teaches courses in these areas as well as a TSEM focused on the History of Towson University in the 1960s and 1970s. Dr. Koot is also the Chair of the History Department.

Selected Publications

  • A Biography of a Map in Motion: Augustine Herrman鈥檚 Chesapeake (New York University Press, 2018)
  • Empire at the Periphery: British Colonists, Anglo-Dutch Trade, and the Development of the British Atlantic, 1621-1713 (New York University Press, Early American Places Book Series, July 2011).
  • 鈥淚magining the West Indies: An Early English Map of Montserrat,鈥� Winterthur Portfolio, 53, 1 (Spring, 2019), 3-39.
  • "Anglo-Dutch Trade in the Chesapeake and the British Caribbean, 1621-1733,鈥� in Gert Oostindie & Jessica Roitman, ed., Dutch Atlantic Connections,1680-1800: Networks and Nodal Points (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 72-102.
  • 鈥淭he Merchant, the Map, and Empire: Augustine Herrman鈥檚 Chesapeake and Interimperial Trade, 1644-1673,鈥� William and Mary Quarterly, 62, 4 (October 2010), 603-44.

Recent Lectures and Presentations

2025

Smuggling Roundtable, Where is Early America. McNeil Center for Early American Studies, Philadelphia, Penn.

鈥淜eywords in Political Economy: Economic Ideology,鈥� Program in Early American Economy and Society, PEAES@25, Philadelphia, Penn.

2024

鈥淧ublic Architecture and Imperial Reform on the Eve of the Revolution: Governing the British Atlantic after the Treaty of Paris,鈥� On the Eve of Independence: Art and Architecture in the British Empire, Mount Vernon, Virg.

鈥淭elling the Whole Story: Unearthing TU's History of Diversity,鈥� Panel Discussion, President Ginsberg Inauguration Events, Towson University, Towson, Md.

鈥淎rchivesLab: Embedding the TU Archives in a TSEM Course,鈥� TU Educators鈥� Conference, Towson, Md.

2023

鈥淩emaking the Empire's Built Environment: Architecture and Governance in the Aftermath of the Treaty of Paris, 1763-1770,鈥� Empire and Its Discontent, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, Mass.

鈥淯nearthing Towson鈥檚 History,鈥� Universities Studying Slavery at Maryland Colleges and Universities, The 1856 Project Inaugural Symposium, College Park, Maryland

2022

鈥淔ashioning an Ornament to the Colony: Imperial Belonging and Crisis in the Governor鈥檚 Palace at New Bern,鈥� The David Center for the American Revolution at the American Philosophical Society Seminar Series, Philadelphia, Penn.

鈥淎 Biography of a Map: Augustine Herrman鈥檚 Virginia and Maryland (1673),鈥� Cartography & Culture

Mapping the Early American South, Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (MESDA), Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

鈥淪tudents as agents of change and memory keeping: Unearthing TU鈥檚 history,鈥� (with Dr. Ashley Todd-Diaz and Dr. Brian Jara) Towson University Educators Summit, Towson, Maryland

Recent Book Reviews

Christopher E. Hendricks, The Colonial Towns of Piedmont North Carolina in The Journal of Southern History, forthcoming.

Jacob Selwood, At Kingdom鈥檚 Edge: The Suriname Struggles of Jeronimy Clifford, English Subject in William and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser., 80, 1 (April 2023) 423-27.

Alida C. Metcalf, Mapping An Atlantic World, circa 1500 in Journal of Latin American Geography, 20, 3 (2021), 208-210.

Awards and Honors

  • NEH Research Fellowship, Winterthur Museum and Library, Winterthur, Delaware, 2011
    Jeannette D. Black Memorial Research Fellowship, John Carter Brown Library, Providence, 2011
  • Faculty Development and Research Committee Summer Research Fellowship, Towson University, 2009
  • Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching, Theta Beta Chapter, Phi Alpha Theta, Towson University, 2009
  • Towson Academy of Scholars, Towson University, 2008-09
  • American Historical Association Kraus Research Grant, 2007
  • International Seminar on the History of the Atlantic World, Harvard University, Short-Term Research Grant, 2007