Sherry Johnson

Bio

Professor Johnson’s research and teaching interests include Cuba and the Caribbean, environment and climate change, disasters such as hurricanes, medicine, women and gender, and social history. In her first book, The Social Transformation of Eighteenth Century Cuba, we discover a reinterpretation of the political events of the late eighteenth-century in Cuba based upon the emergence of two political factions. Borne of rivalries of the reforms of 1763, she concludes that many nineteenth-century intellectuals, especially Padre Felix Varela, came to their political positions regarding Cuban independence because of social and political processes set in motion in the previous century. Her current project “El Nino’s" Atlantic World Repercussions in the Age of Revolution, 1750-1810,” should appear shortly. Other projects include an examination of how ordinary summer fevers contributed to the British victory at Havana in 1762; a comparison of two smallpox epidemics in the Hispanic Caribbean in 1769 and 1776; a study of domestic violence in Cuba from 1766-1800; the publication of a ship’s log kept in 1821-1822 with an introductory essay, and the translation of one volume of a travel diary in the United States kept by nineteenth century Cuban intellectual Eusebio Guiteras. She regularly offers a Latin American history survey and a course on Cuban history. Other courses include upper-division courses in Latin American women's history, Caribbean and Florida history. She directs a variety of graduate readings and research seminars including Readings and Research in Latin American history, and Florida history. A new course is currently being devloped that will focus on Latin American environmental history, reflecting her newest project on hurricanes and disasters in the Caribbean basin.