John Harpham is a PhD candidate in the Department of Government. He studies political theory and intellectual history. His dissertation examines the context of ideas about freedom, slavery, and race within which the English African slave trade began. The project is titled "The Intellectual Origins of American Slavery." Although his focus in this project is early-modern England, he is also deeply interested in the ways in which the themes of this project are at once continued and transformed in American political thought. He has substantial interests as well in legal history, literary history, and the contested cultural memory of American slavery; and his articles on these subjects have appeared in Criticism, Raritan, and Slavery & Abolition. He has held dissertation research fellowships from Harvard's Center for American Political Studies and Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History.

This information is accurate as of the fellowship year indicated for each fellow.