Vaughn Scribner
Associate Professor
Irby 105E
(501) 450-3158
My scholarship reflects my broad interests, ranging from colonial American tavern going, to the complex history of humanity’s obsession with merpeople, to early modern Britons’ never-ending, often-debilitating, pursuit of mastery over the natural world. I’m an award-winning author of three books—Under Alien Skies: Environment, Suffering, and the Defeat of the British Military in Revolutionary America (UNC Press, 2024), Merpeople: A Human History (Reaktion Books, 2020), and Inn Civility: Urban Taverns and Early American Civil Society (NYU Press, 2019)—in addition to dozens of articles, book chapters, and other publications. I teaches classes on colonial and Revolutionary America, the Enlightenment, the Atlantic slave trade, and historical methods, and especially love introducing students to British history and culture through summer study abroad trips!
I attended graduate school at the University of Kansas from 2008-2013, where I met my wife, Kristen. We have embraced the “natural state,” and enjoy canoeing the Buffalo River, trying new restaurants in Little Rock, and exploring the nearly-endless trails, waterfalls, and mountains for which Arkansas is so well known. We also love traveling nationally (especially to Santa Fe, NM and New Orleans, LA) and internationally (Positano, the Scottish Highlands, Southwest Ireland, and the Virgin Islands are some favorites…so far).