Notre Dame Professor Sophie White Wins Multiple Honors for Her New Book

Sophie White, a professor of American studies at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, has won multiple honors for her book Voices of the Enslaved: Love, Labor, and Longing in French Louisiana (University of North Carolina Press, 2019).

Professor White won the Kemper and Leila Williams Book Prize from the Historic New Orleans Collection and the Louisiana Historical Association and the 2020 Summerlee Book Prize from the Center for History and Culture of Southeast Texas and the Upper Gulf Coast at Lamar University. Dr. White also received an honorable mention for the Merle Curti Award for best book in American social history from the Organization of American Historians.

The judges for the Summerlee Book Prize wrote that Voices of the Enslaved represents “a tour de force of interdisciplinary historical scholarship” and blends legal, cultural, and material history to reveal deep connections between the enslaved world of New Orleans and the societies and cultures of the Caribbean and West Africa. Professor White examined transcripts of court cases where enslaved people were brought in as witnesses. In many cases, their testimonies offered a glimpse of their lives that otherwise would have been lost.

Professor White holds a master’s degree from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and a second master’s degree and a Ph.D. from the University of London.