Adrian Chastain Weimer, Ph.D.
Adrian Chastain Weimer, Ph.D.
Professor of history
EDUCATION: Ph.D., Harvard University, 2008; bachelor’s degree, Wake Forest University, 1999, where she was a Reynolds Scholar.
BEGAN TEACHING AT PC: Fall 2011
EXPERTISE: Colonial America, Early Modern Atlantic World, Constitutionalism, Legal Access, Indigenous Diplomacy, Religious Toleration
NEWSWORTHY: Weimer’s most recent book, A Constitutional Culture: New England and the Struggle Against Arbitrary Rule in the Restoration Empire (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2023), won the John Winthrop Prize. In 2025 she was awarded a long-term fellowship from the John Carter Brown Library in Providence for her research on Anglo-Indigenous diplomacy.
CURRENT PROJECTS: Weimer is finishing a documentary edition of The Writings of Daniel Gookin, a Puritan colonist with connections to Ireland and Virginia who advocated for Native American territorial and legal rights. She is also starting a major book project on the Pawtucket leader James Quannapohit, who negotiated alliances among Indigenous and European groups that brought his people through multiple 17th century wars.
QUOTABLE: “History is a field where we hold our conclusions lightly. Even in well-studied areas like early New England, fresh evidence and new insights might appear that turn an entire set of assumptions upside down. I love helping students find their own historical interpretations based on accurate reading of sources and appreciation for the full humanity of the people involved.”
ORIGINALLY FROM: Tampa, Florida
HOBBIES: Hiking, reading memoirs, helping her teenage girls get ready for parties
— Carolyn Cronin
