Book Proposal

Empire of Consuls is a history of how Atlantic consuls negotiated an international consensus on citizenship and human rights, how they shaped ideas of national sovereignty, and how they developed new practices of empire- and nation-building in the Age of Revolution (1776-1848). By claiming expert knowledge and authority in identifying individuals, promoting commerce, and surveilling migration, consuls ushered in a revolution in Atlantic governance. Using sources from more than a dozen archives in six countries on three continents, my dissertation models an “outside-in” approach to Atlantic state-making with a particular focus on the United States during the period from national independence to the settlement of the U.S.-Mexican War in 1848.

Peer-Reviewed Publications 

“Consular Recognition, Partial Neutrality, and the Making of Atlantic Diplomacy (1776–1825),” Diplomatic History 46:1 (January 2022): 144-172

“Jacksonian Consular Reform and the Forging of America’s First Global Bureaucracy,” Journal of Policy History 33:4 (October 2021): 401-428

“Miranda in the Balkans: Decadent Despotism, Consulship, and the Making of a South-Eastern Revolutionary in the Age of Revolution,”  Journal of Global History 16:3 (2021): 375-394

“‘Insurgentes, self-styled Patriots’: Consuls, Privateers, Slavers, and Mariners in the Making of the Privateering Archipelago," Journal of Global Slavery 5:3 (Fall 2020): 291-321

“‘With What Right Are They Sending a Consul': Unauthorized Consulship, U.S. Expansion, and the Transformation of the Spanish American Empire, 1795-1808,” Journal of the Early Republic 40:1 (Spring 2020): 19-44

“The consular Caribbean: consuls as agents of colonialism and decolonisation in the revolutionary Caribbean (1795–1848),” in: Memory, Migration and (De)Colonisation in the Caribbean and Beyond, eds. Jack Webb, Roderick Westmaas, Maria del Pilar Kaladeen and William Tantam (London: University of London Press, 2020), 117-132

Other Publications and Collaborations 

Co-Author, Mapping the Early American Foreign Service (http://eafsmap.org/)

“Nicholas Brown and the U.S. Consular Service in the Italian 1848” (forthcoming digital exhibition sponsored by a Mellon Foundation grant)

“Conference Report: ‘Empire, Sovereignty, and Labor in the Age of Global Abolition,’” Revista Latinoamericana de Trabajo y Trabajadores 2 (2021): 259-265 

“Дипломация в условията на капитализъм,” Българска Наука 133 (2020): 95-106 [“Diplomacy in the Conditions of Capitalism,” Bǎlgarska Nauka 133] 

“The Banality of the State,” Panorama: Expansive Views from the Journal of the Early Republic, at: http://thepanorama.shear.org/2020/03/03/the-banality-of-the-state/

Book Reviews

Review of Cities in the Balkans: Spaces, Faces, Memories, ed. Roumiana Il. Preshlenova (forthcoming at Slavic Review) 

Review of Hannah Farber, Underwriters of the United States: How Insurance Shaped the American Founding (forthcoming at Journal of the Early Republic)

Research Grants and Merit-Based Scholarships

Petar Beron i Nie Postdoctoral Fellowship, Ministry of Education of the Republic of Bulgaria, 2022-2024

McNeil Center for Early American Studies Dissertation Fellowship, 2019-2021

Marilyn Blatt Young Dissertation Completion Fellowship, 2019 (declined)

Joukowksy Summer Research Award, Graduate School, Brown University, 2019

Departmental Research Grant, History Department, Brown University, 2019

Roger Williams Fellowship, Graduate School, Brown University, 2018

Departmental Research Grant, History Department, Brown University, 2018

Foreign Language Award, History Department, Brown University, 2018

Graduate International Travel Grant, Graduate School, Brown University, 2018

Joukowsky Summer Research Award, Graduate School, Brown University, 2017

Graduate International Travel Grant, Graduate School, Brown University, 2017

Conference Travel Award, Graduate School, Brown University, 2017

William F. Church Memorial Fund, Brown University, 2017

Robert W. Morse Endowed Fellowship, Brown University, 2016

William G. McLoughlin Graduate Fund, Brown University, 2016

Full-Tuition Scholarship, MAPSS, University of Chicago, 2014-15

Conference Talks, Workshops, and Seminars

Chair. “Islanders and Empire: Smuggling and Political Defiance in Hispaniola, 1580-1690.” CLACS, University of London, 2022

Presenter. “A Laboratory for Abolition: British Consulates in Haiti in the Age of Atlantic Revolution (1824-1848).” Empire, Sovereignty, and Labor in the Age of Global Abolition, University of Pennsylvania/McNeil Center for Early American Studies Conference, February 2021

Organizer and Presenter. “Citizens Without Borders: Extraterritoriality, Citizenship, and the Origins of the Global American State, 1815-1860.” Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations Conference, June 2020 (overview available at https://shafr.memberclicks.net/assets/docs/Simeonov%2C%20Simeon%20Andonov.pdf)

Presenter. “Fugitive Slaves and the Failure of Diplomatic Reciprocity in the Spanish Borderlands (1792-1821).” Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations Annual Conference, June 2019

Organizer and Presenter. Into the Outward State: Consuls and Consulates in History, Watson Institute, Brown University, May 2019

Presenter. “Forgotten Agents of Globalization: Consuls and the Making of the Global Political Economy (1776-1848).” Eleventh Global Studies Conference, University of Granada (Spain), August 2018

Presenter. “The Capillaries of the Nation-State: New England Consuls and the Problem of the National Body in the East Indies Trade (1786-1812).” British Group of Early American History Annual Conference, University of Portsmouth (UK), August-September 2017

Chair and Presenter. “The Consular Caribbean in the Age of Revolution: The Role of U.S. and British Consulates in the Spanish American Revolutions.” Memory, Migration, and Decolonisation in the Caribbean and Beyond, 1804 to the Present, University of London (UK), May 2017

Presenter. “‘[A] very specious pretext for the admission of a Vice-Consul:’ Consular Non-Recognition and the Transformation of Spanish American Political History in the Age of Revolution (1797-1815).” Brown Early American Graduate Seminar, Brown University, 2016

Presenter.  "Origins of Empire: Jacksonian Consuls and U.S. Expansionism in the Spanish Caribbean (1833-1849).” Early American History Workshop, Brown University, 2015

Presenter and Interpreter (Russian-German). “Deutsch-russische Erinnerungsorte. Немецкие и русские места памяти.” University of Heidelberg Public History, Moscow, September 2011

Research Assistantships 

Research assistant for Brendan Greeley, U.S. economics editor of Financial Times, on a book project about the 500-year history of the dollar, June 2019—present

Research assistant on a Mellon Foundation project under the supervision of David Kertzer, Professor of Anthropology and Italian Studies, Brown University, June 2019—present

Research assistant at the John Carter Brown Library for Greg Grandin, Professor of History, New York University, November 2015—March 2016

University Courses Taught

“The US in the World,” Brown University seminar, Spring 2022

“Diplomatic History of Abolitionism,” Brown University lecture, Fall 2021

“Political Models in the Twentieth-Century Balkans,” Sofia University lecture, Fall 2021

Teaching Assistantships

“The Early Republic,” Brown University course, Spring 2021

“American Legal and Constitutional History,” Brown University course, Spring 2018

“History of Capitalism,” Brown University course, Fall 2017

“Modern Latin America,” Brown University course, Spring 2017

“Understanding the Middle East, 1800s to Present,” Brown University course, Fall 2016