Michael Casiano

Michael Casiano is an assistant professor in UMBC’s Department of American Studies and a core faculty member in UMBC’s Public Humanities minor. His book, Let Us Alone: The Origins of Baltimore’s Police State, examines the relationship between policing, municipal governance, and race in post-Civil War Baltimore. Specifically, it analyzes policing in light of two parallel and inextricable realities. First, policing evolved from an inefficient and vigilante-driven system into a modern and paramilitary endeavor focused on suppressing citizens and maximizing the power, wealth, and reach of capitalists. Second, decades of racial antagonism shaped Baltimore policing into an apparatus primarily oriented around subduing Black freedom. Mike’s next project is a social history of early twentieth century port cities in the Mid-Atlantic that examines the relationship between policing, labor, and race. Mike has been involved in grassroots housing justice efforts in Baltimore for the past several years as part of Charm City Land Trusts, a community land trust located in East Baltimore, where he also lives.  He is an affiliate faculty member in the Language, Literacy, and Culture (LLC) doctoral program and an associate member of UMBC’s graduate faculty.

Education
  • PhD, Department of American Studies, University of Maryland, College Park (2018)
  • B.A., Department of American Studies, University of Maryland College Park (2012)
Selected Publications

Book

  • Casiano, Michael. Let Us Alone: The Origins of Baltimore’s Police State. Urbana-Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2025, in press.

Book Chapters

  • Casiano, Michael. “Baltimore.” In Oxford Bibliographies in Urban Studies, edited by Richardson Dilworth. New York: Oxford University Press, 2025, in press.
  • Casiano, Michael. “‘The Pot’: Criminalizing Black Neighborhoods in Jim Crow Baltimore.” In Baltimore Revisited: Stories of Inequality & Resistance in a U.S. City, edited by P. Nicole King, Joshua C. Davis, and Kate Drabinski, 37-51. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2019.
Courses
  • AMST100: Introduction to American Studies
  • AMST300: Approaches in American Studies
  • AMST380: Community in America
  • AMST413: Policing and Prisons in U.S. Society
  • AMST490: Senior Seminar
  • AMST680: Community & Culture (Graduate Section for AMST413)
  • PUBH200: Introduction to Public Humanities