Dr. Antwain Hunter ’07 Hired as Professor, UNC at Chapel Hill

Assistant professor Antwain Hunter, PhD, will leave Butler University to teach at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the fall.  

In 2014, Hunter started at Butler as assistant professor of history. He chose to leave Butler to expand his research opportunities. His research focuses on enslaved and freed people of color in North Carolina during the Antebellum period. He focuses on North Carolina because of its long colonial history and the lack of attention it gets amongst historians compared to states like Virginia and South Carolina. 

At UNC, Hunter will teach courses mostly on slavery in the Americas. One of the courses he will teach is an undergraduate research course, working with history majors who write in-depth research papers. Hunter said he is excited to take students to the archives at the library on campus. Because UNC is a larger university than Butler, he can teach more specific in-depth courses at UNC.  

“If you have like four or five different slavery courses you teach, you can really boil it down to like a course that’s just on slavery in the family or just on slavery and resistance,” Hunter said. “I can also do local courses. I can teach a course on North Carolina slavery to North Carolinians, some of whose ancestors were slaves in North Carolina or people who live in the communities that we are talking about. I love that idea too.” 

During his time at Butler, Hunter was a faculty in residence for three years, served on the Faculty Senate, co-chaired the BUPD review board and was a member of various other committees. This year, he assumed the position of faculty fellow for the Diversity Center.  

He earned his bachelor’s degree in American history from Westfield State in 2007, then earned his master’s degree in American history from the University of Connecticut in 2009. He earned his doctorate in American history from Penn State University in 2015. 

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