Fifth Annual Graduate Alumni Lecture: Jennifer James, "'The Terrible Revolt': Black Labor Consciousness in the Gilded Age"

GEO welcomes Jennifer James, Associate Professor of English and Director of Africana Studies at George Washington University, as our speaker for the Fifth Annual Graduate Alumni Lecture.

Jennifer James specializes in African American literature and culture, with a concentration in the 19th century. Prof. James has a particular interest in theorizing the relationships among literary praxis, representations of blackness and sociopolitical violence. This interest extends beyond the U.S., incorporating transnational and diasporic perspectives on slavery, war, and revolution in the 19th century Americas. She has also produced essays exploring the ways that the memory of slavery appears in 20th and 21st century African American social justice discourses, including anti-war pacifism, environmentalism and disability agency. Currently, Professor James is working on two projects, Black Jack: Andrew Jackson and African American Cultural Memory, which traces the history three generations of ancestors enslaved by the President, and a cultural history of a little-known labor riot staged by black American miners during the “nadir.” Her book A Freedom Bought with Blood: African American War Literature from the Civil War to World War II was published by UNC press in 2007.

A reception will follow Prof. James's talk in the foyer outside the graduate studies suite.