Graduate Student Directory

Research Interests

Settler Colonialism—Geography of Capitalism—History of Capitalism—Economic Development—Imperialism—Labor History—Political Theory—Australia—Palestine 

Biography, Education and Training

Jack Davies is a PhD Candidate in the History of Consciousness at the University of California, Santa Cruz and holds a Master of Arts from the Center for Arab and Middle Eastern Studies at the American University of Beirut, as well as a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in History, from the University of Melbourne.

His dissertation, Wages of Settlers, is an interdisciplinary and critical treatment of prevailing theories of settler colonialism. It resituates the critique of settler colonialism, as derived from cultural anthropology, within the historical geography of capitalism, drawing on historical and theoretical studies of economic development, and labor histories inspired by the critique of whiteness. In this, the historically unprecedented mobility and wages of settlers emerges as a pivotal factor in the historical development of the colonies, carrying significant political implications for the present. 

Honors, Awards and Grants

2023: Middlebury Collaborative in Conflict Transformation Scholarship

2021: Advanced to PhD Candidacy with Honors

2020: SSRC Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship, University of California Santa Cruz

2020: History of Consciousness Dissertation Quarter Fellowship, University of California Santa Cruz

2019: Robert Cavooris Memorial Award for Community Organizing

2018: Humanities Predoctoral Fellowship, University of California Santa Cruz

2018: International Doctoral Recruitment Fellowship, History of Consciousness, University of California Santa Cruz

2016: Nadim Makdisi Memorial Fund, Issam Fares, American University of Beirut

2013: Norman Harper Prize for Best Undergraduate Essay, Australasian Journal for American Studies

Selected Publications

Davies, Jack. “Turning the World Outside In: Settler Colonial Studies and Political Economy.” Forthcoming in Historical Materialism.

Talibi, Omar. “The Palestinian and Jewish Working Class and their Organizations, 1918-1939.” Trans. Jack Davies, Muriam Davis, Martin Devecka, Robin Jones, Thomas Serres, Becker Sharif. Forthcoming in Critical Ethnic Studies.

Davies, Jack. “Time Decay: Assets, Authoritarianism, and Anxiety about the Future.” CLC Web: Comparative Literature and Culture 23, no. 1 (2021).

Davies, Jack. “Relation of protection: law, religion and gender in the processing of a Lebanese asylum seeker.” Contemporary Levant 3, no. 2 (2018). 

Davies, Jack. Decision Record 1007183 [2010] RRTA 930: Justice and History in a System of Credibility. MA Thesis. Center for Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies. American University of Beirut, (2018).

Davies, Jack. Incitement to Narration: The Politics of Asylum Stories in Australia and Lebanon. Working paper for the Nadim Makdisi Memorial Fund. Published by the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, (2018).

Davies, Jack. Oil Shocked: A Microhistory of the First Days of the Energy Crisis, October 16-27, 1973. Australasian Journal of American Studies 33, no. 1, 51-72 (2014).

Keys, Barbara; Davies, Jack; Bannan, Elliott. The Post-Traumatic Decade: New Histories of the 1970s. Australasian Journal of American Studies 33, no. 1, 1-17 (2014).

Teaching Interests

HISC 113: History of Capitalism

University of California, Santa Cruz

HISC 80W: What is Imperialism?

University of California, Santa Cruz

WRIT 2: Writing Cases

University of California, Santa Cruz