Miguel Angel Chavez


Historian of Science, Exploration, and Empire
contact me:
  cumberland profile
   email
social media:
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I’m Miguel Angel Chávez, an Assistant Professor of History at Cumberland University. Since 2022, I have been teaching a variety of  courses, ranging from survey-level Western & World Civ. courses to upper-level courses on the History of Science, African History, and Historical Geography.

I received my Ph.D. in History from Vanderbilt University in 2023. Prior to that, I received my Master’s and Bachelor’s degree from the University of North Texas.

At Vanderbilt,  I was the J. Léon Helguera Fellow at Vanderbilt’s History Department, as well as a William J. Vaughn Fellow at the Robert Penn Warren Center. I was also a Dibner Research Fellow of the History of Science at the Huntington Library in 2019-2020.


In my dissertation, Professionalizing Science: British Geography, Africa, and the Exploration of the Nile (2023), I sought to understand the rhetoric, strategies, and techniques geographers used to position themselves as scientists, tracing this development from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century.

I am in the process of submitting drafts for publication, with the hope of publishing my dissertation as a manuscript. I will endeavor to update my progress here 🙂

For more information, please take a look at my research page: link.

Illustration by Thomas Baines (1863)





C’est moi 😄

Colophon

This website was built on cargo.site in 2025, replacing my old site on Squarespace. The previous name of this site was prolegomena.net, which still works but redirects to this site.

The font used for this site is Diatype (and its varieties). As for why the site background is yellow...I just like the color, along with red and black.

For a look at my very oldest writings (which are quite outdated and amateurish), please refer to my WordPress blog. My Xanga and Myspace accounts are, alas, lost to the digital æther. 





Outside of academia, I am an avid political junkie, a fan of modern art and design, coffee addict, and a sci-fi geek. 

As a Chicano, I care deeply about issues affecting my community. As such, some topics on my blog may veer away history and academia and towards more political and contemporary topics.


miguelchavez.net is my personal website/blog, a place where I can expand on my research, and where I can comment upon the happenings of the world. 

If you have any questions or comments, you can find me in the following places: