Dr Paton is a historian of the Caribbean, with particular interests in Jamaican history, Caribbean cultural history, comparative histories of slavery and emancipation, and gender history.
Caribbean history especially Jamaica; history of slavery and emancipation; gender history; comparative history of the Americas.
My main current research is on the cultural history of obeah, a Caribbean creole spiritual healing practice that has been illegal for most of its history. My research examines competing constructions of obeah in law, medical knowledge, colonial discourse, and popular culture, using them as a window onto debates about race and nation in the region.
I welcome applications to work on any area of Caribbean history, and on histories of slavery and emancipation and/or gender history elsewhere in the Americas. I also welcome students interested in interdisciplinary Caribbean Studies.
I did my first degree, in history, at Warwick University. I then went to Yale University to do a PhD, graduating in 2000. My dissertation, 'No Bond but the Law: Punishment and Justice in Jamaica's Age of Emancipation' was supervised by Emilia Viotti da Costa, Gilbert Joseph, and Nancy Cott.
Chair, Society for Caribbean Studies 2002-2006
Treasurer Society for Caribbean Studies 2006-2008
I teach the following modules, although not all of them run every year:
HIS1046: History of the Americas
HIS2034: The Rise and Fall of Atlantic Slavery
HIS2039: The Caribbean since 1898
HIS3001: The Haitian Revolution (special subject)
HIS3013: Slave Emancipation in the British Empire (special subject)
HIS3015: Post-Slave Societies in the British Empire (special subject)
HIS4006: Reading History
MA History of the Americas
HIS8032: Slavery and Freedom