Mattie C. Webb
Historian || Professor || Runner
I am social and political historian of the 20th century United States and southern Africa. Currently, I am an assistant professor of history at the Virginia Military Institute (VMI), where I teach courses on U.S. foreign policy and the U.S. Constitution. I am also a Nonresident Fellow with the Institute for Global Affairs at Eurasia Group and Affiliate Scholar with Rhodes University's Neil Aggett Labour Studies Unit (NALSU) in South Africa.
Prior to VMI, held a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at Yale University's Johnson Center for the Study of American Diplomacy at the Jackson School of Global Affairs.
I earned my Ph.D. in History from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2023. My research sits at the nexus of transnational labor and social movements, African studies, and U.S. foreign relations, and has been generously funded by a Fulbright Fellowship, a Boren Fellowship, and various other grants.
My first book project, Shopfloor Statecraft: South African Workers & U.S. Multinational Companies During Apartheid (under contract with Columbia University Press), examines transnational labor politics, corporate power, and economic statecraft in the late Cold War.
As a public historian, I regularly author op-eds and essays. My work has appeared in The Washington Post, Lawfare, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and many other outlets. I also serve as a Book Review Editor with the Journal of Military History.
I hold a master’s degree in Global Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and I received my BA summa cum laude in History from North Carolina State University in 2014.
Beyond my academic work, I am a competitive long distance runner. I was a Division I Track & Field and Cross Country athlete, competing for both North Carolina State University (mostly injured...) and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I shared some lessons from that experience for an article in Fast Women. I've wedded this interest with my research in South Africa, where I volunteer with a local running after school program for rural South African youth. I ran South Africa's historically-significant Comrades Ultra-Marathon (an 88K race in KwaZulu Natal) in June 2024, and I hope to eventually incorporate the history of Comrades and other global running events into a book project on the role of sport in the fight against apartheid.
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I am primarily based in Lexington, Virginia and am currently available for speaking engagements, collaborative work, and guest lectures. I sometimes split time between the United States and South Africa.