"Make a way out of no way: Black Women's Itinerant Practices in Early America and beyond"

Race, class and gender constraints frequently thwarted Black women's attempts at agency in early America and confined them to spaces so tight that it seems almost impossible to maneuver within them. Yet, enslaved, self-emancipated and free Black women frequently strained against enclosures of all kinds and found ways to enact what Saidiya Hartman terms "itinerant acts of defiance."

            Drawing on Black feminism and scholarship in the field of Black women's history, my thesis turns to better as well as lesser-known 18th and 19th century archival subjects (Jarena Lee, Sally Hemings, Ona Judge, Ellen Craft, Martina and Mary Anne Dickerson) and their itinerant practices. Each woman's unique historical, social and geographical background informed her attempt(s) at "making a way out of no way" and led to a diverse range of itinerant practices such as self-liberation, truancy/petit marronage, itinerant preaching, abolitionist activism or journaling/letter writing.

            Through developing and enacting new self- and placemaking practices both within the US but also in the larger Atlantic world, Black itinerant women challenged and complicated received narratives and dichotomies (e.g. of North/South, freedom/bondage, male/female, private/public, mobile/immobile).

            While Black women's historical experience in the early republic is at the heart of my project, I also want to pair my own readings of source materials with the forceful practices of re-reading itinerant histories that have emerged from within the Black community, e.g. in contemporary artists'/activists'/scholars' projects.

• American Studies
• Black Studies
• Postcolonial/Decolonial Studies
• Gender Studies
• Archival Studies

Fellow with the Whole Life Academy Berlin organized by HKW (fall 2021- spring 2022)

Peter Nicolaisen International Fellowship by the International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello (2021, postponed due to Covid)

Scholarship for the Promotion of Young Researchers by the Kommission für Forschung und wissenschaftlichen Nachwuchs (FNK) of the University of Potsdam (2018).

Scholarship by the Bayerische Amerika-Akademie to participate in the 10th BAA International Summer Academy at Florida International University, Miami (2018).

Scholarship by the University of Potsdam and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) to study at Duke University, Durham (2016).

Scholarship by Fulbright to participate in the American Studies Summer School at Humboldt University, Berlin (2013).

Scholarship by the University of Potsdam and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) to study at the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad (2012).