ABOUT ME
Cody Nager is a Lecturer at Sam Houston State University (SHSU) and teaches courses to undergraduate and graduate students. He is a historian of American citizenship, law, the Constitution, and migration whose work places the United States in a broader Atlantic and global context from colonial times to the present. He received his doctorate in history from the Graduate Center, City University of New York, his MA from The College of William and Mary, and his BA from Columbia University. Prior to SHSU, he was a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover History Lab and a dissertation fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s McNeil Center for Early American Studies. In addition to SHSU, he has taught at Stanford University, City College of New York, the CUNY School of Law, and Texas Tech University. His research has been supported by Oxford University’s Rothermere American Institute, the Library of Congress’ John W. Kluge Center, and the American Historical Association among other institutions.
His book, Determined to be American: Regulating Migration and Citizenship in the Early American Republic, 1783–1824, under contract with Oxford University Press, examines how debates over law, diplomacy, national security, territorial expansion, and slavery shaped the creation of legal and political institutions governing who could become a citizen. Internationally, the turmoil of the Atlantic world, such as the French and Haitian Revolutions, ongoing slave resistance, and the Napoleonic Wars buffeted the nation. Domestically, indigenous resistance, European colonial designs, and perceived risk of slave revolts heightened tensions. Meanwhile, a constitutional framework entangled the free migration of voluntary immigrants and the coerced migration of enslaved people. Migrants forced Americans to confront a panoply of political leanings, economic circumstances, and ideologies. Americans thought selecting the “right” migrants would bring economic success, while picking the “wrong” ones would take the jobs of hardworking residents, occupy fertile western lands with unproductive populations, and expand slavery. The evolution of migration regulations not only shaped partisan conflict and the development of Early American institutions but also laid the groundwork for later struggles over citizenship.
His scholarship has also appeared in journals such as The Journal of Early American History, The Journal of American Ethnic History, and The Historian, in public facing outlets such as the Washington Post, and a variety of digital formats, including YouTube videos with over 1.3 million combined views.