Blake C. Scott, Ph.D.
Chair and Associate Professor of International Studies
Blake Scott is a historian, writer, and associate professor of International Studies at the College of Charleston. His work investigates cultural and ecological connections that transcend national borders, linking the Caribbean and Latin America with the United States. In the Department of International Studies, Dr. Scott teaches both introductory and advanced courses on cultural and economic globalization, travel and migration, and global environmental change.
He is the author of Unpacked: A History of Caribbean Tourism (Cornell University Press) and co-editor of Port Cities of the Atlantic World: Sea-facing Histories of the U.S. South (University of South Carolina Press). His writing has also appeared in publications ranging from Environmental History and the Journal of Tourism History to The Huffington Post and Charleston’s Post and Courier.
Dr. Scott’s research has been supported by grants and fellowships from the Fulbright Program, the Smithsonian Institution, NOAA–South Carolina Sea Grant, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the University of Texas at Austin, and the College of Charleston’s School of Languages, Cultures, and World Affairs.
Beyond the classroom, Dr. Scott explores and studies the flora and fauna of the salt marshes of the Carolina Lowcountry. He is the co-founder of the M.A.R.S.H. Project, a grassroots initiative dedicated to revitalizing and advocating for the region’s unique marshland ecosystems, which connect Charleston, South Carolina, to the Atlantic Flyway of bird migration stretching from the Canadian Arctic to the Caribbean and onward to Patagonia.
Education
Ph.D. in History, University of Texas at Austin
M.A., University of Georgia
B.A., Florida State University
Courses
Introduction to International Studies
Global Environmental Challenges: Past, Present, Future
U.S.-Latin American Relations
Caribbean Crossroads: People, Ideas, and Goods on-the-move
Deconstructing Tourism: History, Culture, and the Question of Sustainability
Environmental Commons in Global Perspective
From Marsh to Mountains: Sustainability Practices in Context
Selected Publications
Books:
Port Cities of the Atlantic World: Sea-Facing Histories of the US South, co-edited with Jacob Steere-Williams. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2023.
Unpacked: A History of Caribbean Tourism. Itacha: Cornell University Press, 2022.
Articles and Essays:
“‘Southern hospitality’ in Charleston, South Carolina: the diverse meanings of a regional form of hospitality in a growing tourism destination,” with Daniel Guttentag, Wayne Smith, and Robert Pitts, Tourism Recreation Research, April, 2024.
“Reimagine a Charleston Tourism Industry that benefits residents,” The Post and Courier, January 5, 2023.
“River Meditations: A Journey into Environmental Education,” with Merrie Koester, The Journal of Sustainability Education, Vol. 25, (September 11, 2021): 1-10.
“From the Rainforest to the Moon and Back: Or how one indigenous community joined the international tourist economy,” The Caribbean Writer, Volume 33, (Fall 2019): 244-248.
“Discussion: Tourism and Diplomacy,” with Shelley Baranowski, Lisa Pinley Covert, Bertram M. Gordon, Richard Ivan Jobs, Christian Noack, and Adam T. Rosenbaum, Journal of Tourism History, Volume 11, No. 1, (January 2019): 63-90.
“Tourism in the History of U.S. Foreign Relations,” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History, (June 2017): 1-25.
“From Disease to Desire: The Rise of Tourism at the Panama Canal,” Environmental History, Volume 21, No. 2 (March 2016): 270-277. Translated by Dr. Mónica Kupfer, “De la enfermedad al deseo: El surgimiento del turismo en el Canal de Panamá,” Revista Panameña de Política, Volume 25, (December 2018): 79-87.
“More than a Natural Disaster: Puerto Rico in the Aftermath of History’s Storm,” The Huffington Post, December 2017.