Education: BA, History with Honours First Class, University of Queensland, 2005; MA, History, University of Rochester, 2014.
Biography: James Rankine is a fifth year PhD Candidate in the Department of History.
His dissertation examines the cultural and social history of pirates, piracy and violence in the early modern Atlantic. In particular, James’ work seeks to reassess our understanding of pirates’ careers and culture by highlighting the ways in which their historical reality radically differs from popular memory. James has also spent several seasons as a site supervisor for the University of Rochester’s Smith’s Island Archeology Project under Professor Michael Jarvis. He is currently working on PirateDB a digital database which collects and displays hundreds of contemporary newspaper reports of pirate activity across the Atlantic world.
Currently, James serves as a teaching assistant and digital research assistant for the Lewis Henry Morgan Bicentennial Project.
Visit http://jsrankine.digitalscholar.rochester.edu/portfolio/index.html to learn more.