Education

B.A.

History, Fairmont State University (summa cum laude)

M.A.

Historical Studies, University of Maryland Baltimore County

Ph.D.

History of Science, Technology, & Environment, University of South Carolina

Bio

I joined the Department of History in fall 2017 after earning my Ph.D. in the History of Science, Technology, and Environment under the direction of Drs. Ann Johnson and Allison Marsh. I teach a range of undergraduate courses in the history of science and technology, crime and punishment, and sport history. My teaching emphasizes game-based learning as a means of fostering active participation, historical empathy, and sustained student engagement.

My teaching has been recognized with the Department of History’s John A. and Annie Rice Excellence in Teaching Award, the Office of Student Disability Services’ Two Thumbs Up Award, the Dean’s Office Undergraduate Teaching Award, and the Center for Teaching Excellence’s Garnet Apple Award for Teaching Innovation. I have also been nominated for the Mungo Undergraduate Teaching Award. Students working under my direction have received research and writing awards from the Society of Automotive Historians and the University of South Carolina’s Thomas Cooper Library.

My historical research examines maritime technologies in the nineteenth-century United States, particularly the scientific policy and technical practice of the United States Lighthouse Establishment from the adoption of the Constitution through the Civil War.

This research has received fellowships from the Consortium for the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine; the Mercurians Special Interest Group of the Society for the History of Technology; the Linda Hall Library; the Rakow Research Library at the Corning Museum of Glass; and the Institute for Humane Studies.

My scholarship has appeared in The Northern Mariner / Le marin du nord, The Journal of Glass Studies, and the South Carolina Historical Magazine. I have also presented research on maritime technologies as an invited speaker for Portland Greater Landmarks in Maine and the National Lighthouse Museum on Staten Island, New York.

My pedagogical research examines the use of game-based learning in undergraduate history courses. With Rachel Hoke, I co-authored “Rewriting the Rules: Game-based Learning for Affective and Cognitive Student Engagement in an Undergraduate History Course,” published in the International Journal of Role-Playing in March 2026.

I am a member of the Society for the History of Technology, the History of Science Society, the North American Society for Oceanic History, and the National Maritime Historical Society.

Activities

My current work includes pedagogical research on game-based learning in undergraduate history courses and the editing of American Founding Documents: A Documentary Reader, now in press with the University of South Carolina Press.

I currently direct two Honors College theses: one on the role of sport in international peace negotiations and another on women’s political activity in the nineteenth century.

Selected Publications

• Rachel Hoke and James Risk, “Rewriting the Rules: Game-based Learning for Affective and Cognitive Student Engagement in an Undergraduate History Course,” International Journal of Role-Playing 17 (March 2026): 22–41.
• James Risk, “A Fate Worse than Famine: The Tragedy of the Brig St. John,” Wreck & Rescue, no. 3 (Fall 2023): 23–27.
• James Risk, “Captain Winslow Lewis of Wellfleet: The Crown Prince of American Lighthouses,” Wreck & Rescue 23, no. 4 (Winter 2023): 21–24.
• James Risk, “Marine Observatories and Lighthouses,” Mainely History Podcast, September 26, 2022.
• James Risk, “The Fresnel Affair: Manufacturing, Technology Transfer, Republicanism, and the Adoption of the Fresnel Lighthouse Lens, 1819–1852,” The Northern Mariner / Le marin du nord 28, no. 4 (Autumn 2018): 363–84.
• James Risk, “Seven Flags over Charleston Harbor: James M. Elford and the Quest for a Universal Maritime Signal Code,” South Carolina Historical Magazine 118, no. 2 (April 2017): 132–54.