Christine Skwiot earned her Ph.D. in History from Rutgers University in 2003, taught for a decade at Georgia State University, and joined Maine Maritime Academy in January 2014 as an Associate Professor of Humanities.

Long a historian of race, nation, and empire in the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean worlds, Dr. Skwiot published a book, The Purposes of Paradise: U.S. Tourism and Empire in Cuba and Hawai‘i 2010, and several articles on their interconnected histories. At MMA, she expanded upon this work, for example co-teaching an Honors Seminar on Moby Dick with Eric Jergenson and Sarah O’Malley and publishing an article, “‘To ‘Live Like King George’ in Hawai‘i and the United States: Entangled Exceptionalisms and Sovereignty Struggles in an Age of Revolutions, 1776-1819.”

She has embraced the freedom that MMA offers her as a “country doctor,” or generalist in the best sense of the word, to explore new disciplines and fields. Dr. Skwiot has begun work on a new project, “Suicide and the Self-Made Man, or Dying Along with the American Dream,” that will lead to publications aimed at popular and scholarly audiences and new ways of teaching the humanities. This work will also provide access to the field of young adult development, which will help Dr. Skwiot and her colleagues better understand and serve the developing young adults with whom MMA faculty work every day.

She looks forward to many more exciting and productive years at MMA, working with the most congenial colleagues in academia to help students find themselves at home in the many new worlds that they will explore.