Gunja SenGupta’s current interests lie in 19th-century U.S. and slavery/abolition in the Indian Ocean; sectional conflict; African American and women’s history. Her first book, For God and Mammon: Evangelicals and Entrepreneurs, Masters and Slaves in Territorial Kansas (1996), dealt with sectional conflict and consensus. In From Slavery to Poverty: The Racial Origins of Welfare in New York, 1840-1918 (2009), she explored welfare debates as sites for negotiating identities of race, gender, and nation. Her articles have appeared in numerous journals including the American Historical Review, Journal of Negro (African American) History, Civil War History, Kansas History, and Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art. Her current projects, funded by Mellon, Whiting, Wolfe, and Tow fellowships/grants, include one on 19th-century United States and slavery/abolition/empire in the Indian Ocean; and another on the history, memory and films of the Black Atlantic.