Erica Heinsen-Roach
I am an historian of early modern Europe, specifically interested in the Dutch Republic and its global connections. Topics of research include diplomacy, Mediterranean captivity/ slavery, and lately the history of human rights. My first monograph, Consuls and Captives. Dutch-North African Diplomacy in the Early Modern Mediterranean (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2019) examines how the problem of piracy, captivity, and redemption helped shape a new diplomatic order in the western Mediterranean, forging a complex relationship between Protestant states from northwest Europe and Islamic North Africa. Other research publications on the relationship between captivity and diplomacy include peer-reviewed articles in Itinerario and Dutch Crossing. My article “A Communal Affair. Women, Captivity, and Redemption in the Seventeenth-Century Mediterranean” in Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal received the prize for the best article for volume 14.
My research interests have expanded to include the history of human right in the early modern period. Expanding on my previous research, my next monograph analyzes the nascent language of human rights in Mediterranean captivity by examining how captivity challenged and redefined the liberties, privileges, and obligations of captured citizens. In treating captives as citizens, the project seeks to demonstrate that the discourse on political and individual freedom can be located not only in the Enlightened discourses of the philosophes on the continent, but also in the experiences of captives in the early modern Mediterranean.
A second project is a volume I am co-editing with Silvia Z. Mitchell tentatively entitled Ibero-Dutch Imperial Entanglements in the Long Seventeenth Century: Geopolitical Shifts in Global Perspective. It is under contract with Palgrave Macmillan. The project investigates the diplomatic, legal, financial, and commercial entanglements between the Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese empires and questions their presumed “decline” over the long seventeenth century.
I received my PhD at the University of Miami. In support of my work, I have received numerous research and travel grants. I previously taught at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg. Currently, I am an independent scholar based in Florida.
My research interests have expanded to include the history of human right in the early modern period. Expanding on my previous research, my next monograph analyzes the nascent language of human rights in Mediterranean captivity by examining how captivity challenged and redefined the liberties, privileges, and obligations of captured citizens. In treating captives as citizens, the project seeks to demonstrate that the discourse on political and individual freedom can be located not only in the Enlightened discourses of the philosophes on the continent, but also in the experiences of captives in the early modern Mediterranean.
A second project is a volume I am co-editing with Silvia Z. Mitchell tentatively entitled Ibero-Dutch Imperial Entanglements in the Long Seventeenth Century: Geopolitical Shifts in Global Perspective. It is under contract with Palgrave Macmillan. The project investigates the diplomatic, legal, financial, and commercial entanglements between the Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese empires and questions their presumed “decline” over the long seventeenth century.
I received my PhD at the University of Miami. In support of my work, I have received numerous research and travel grants. I previously taught at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg. Currently, I am an independent scholar based in Florida.
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