We should all be deeply uncomfortable with white supremacy—the system of power relationships in which light skin color is believed to be “good,” thus legitimizing white people’s domination of everyone else. In order to confront and dismantle that system, however, white people desperately need to get comfortable with “white supremacy” as a concept. This toxic phrase far more accurately describes the racialized power structures that govern American life tha [...]

It's hard to work on a study of African American history and not be struck by the ongoing stream of news of the deaths of black people. What can often feel like an isolated exercise in abstraction—writing a dissertation—has tuned me to pay particular attention to the ongoing consequences of systematic race-based oppression in our national founding.As a historian I'm tempted to think I really know why racism is so insidious; if contemporary white people would just study the things I d [...]

I spent my first post-comprehensive-exams research trip in Philadelphia last week, visiting the Historical Society of PA for follow up work on the 1876 Centennial world's fair. No "ah ha!" moments this trip, but I got through a good bit of material and confirmed I need to make a few more trips to Philly this summer! The Free Library there has some of the only extant copies of the Philadelphia Free Press newspaper from the 1870s—the paper that seems to have covered the conflict between whit [...]

Just had my last course in grad school! A great seminar on women in modern China—fascinating, informative, and a delightful way to wrap up my classroom work toward a PhD. Whew... [...]

My spirit is done with the semester, though my mind and body have a few weeks to go... Wrapping up seminar papers and preparing for comprehensive exams beginning April 30. Anxious to dig into my research this summer! I'm also excited to have the opportunity to teach WMNST 106 - Representing Women and Gender in Literature, Art and Popular Cultures online for Penn State World Campus this summer - anxious to get back in touch with students, as I haven't been teaching this semester.Unlike last [...]

Excited to dig back in to research this summer, with visits to archives in Philadelphia, New York, and Washington, DC. I'm also delighted and honored to be receiving research funding from the Africana Research Center at Penn State! I should complete my dissertation proposal this summer and begin writing this fall.In just a couple of weeks I'll be sharing a paper on feminist theoretical approaches to nationalism at the Penn State Women's Studies Graduate Organization conference, Sat, Feb 16, at P [...]

"My work considers the social construction of the US nation through discourse and patriotic acts, focusing on the period between the Civil War and World War I. Using feminist and interdisciplinary methods, I am examining acts and expressions of patriotism by marginalized Americans to better understand how nationalism intersects with race, class, and gender to create American identities."Excited that after 3 years of grad school I've got this down to one short paragraph! [...]

Well, pretty much wiped out after 2 ten hour days of research in Philly. Looking forward to sleeping on the bus back to State College in the morning...But I found some amazing stuff! Found some great sources at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania yesterday. It's remarkable how different this trip was from my first real research trip, which also took me to the Free Library. I think I spent half the time back then just figuring out what I wanted to see. This time I was well [...]

The remarkable thing is that I could quite easily spend the entire summer making a list of the books I should read to become familiar with this topic and its historical context... without actually reading any of them. I'm trying to decide how to feel about that -- frustrated and overwhelmed, currently.What's exciting, though, is to see how many familiar names there are in these books. I'm getting the sense that my interests can actually be located in a particular scholarly literature and convers [...]

I've had three full days off from school; time to get back to work! There's a whole set of administrative skills needed for doing research that they don't tell you about in the glossy school brochures... Need to set up appointments with librarians and archivists, book hotel rooms, buy bus tickets, and figure out what on earth I want to look at in some giant archives in Philly this summer.Hoping to visit the Library Company, Free Library, maybe the City Archives, and the Mother Bethel AME Church [...]