Dr. Brenna Greer, ”African Americans and the Photographic Seat of Honour”

2025-11-24

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‘Why do people look at Black people the way they do?’ This is the central provocation of our guest scholar's work. Dr Brenna Greer is an African Americanist and Associate Professor of History at Wellesley College. Her work traverses the histories of culture, race, gender, and, more recently, citizenship in the United States. We discuss her paper, “African Americans and the Photographic Seat of Honour,” which emerges from her ongoing project examining self-portraits created by African Americans, particu...

‘Why do people look at Black people the way they do?’ This is the central provocation of our guest scholar's work.

Dr Brenna Greer is an African Americanist and Associate Professor of History at Wellesley College. Her work traverses the histories of culture, race, gender, and, more recently, citizenship in the United States. We discuss her paper, “African Americans and the Photographic Seat of Honour,” which emerges from her ongoing project examining self-portraits created by African Americans, particularly in the nineteenth century.

Questions of historical process and causality drive her research: How did these portraits shape ideals and images of Blackness? And how might they help teach students and wider publics about the Black past—Black freedom, activism, and protest?

Co-hosts:

Megan Renoir (PhD Candidate) researches Indigenous sovereignty and land conflict. Megan’s recent publication looked at“Recognition as Resilience: How an Unrecognized Indigenous Nation is Using Visibility as a Pathway Toward Restorative Justice".

Sam Lanevi (PhD Candidate) researches World War II fraternization and war bride policy with a particular focus on German and Japanese war brides.

Editing, production and cover art by Daisy Semmler (Cantab MPhil Graduate).

Thanks for listening.

This episode was recorded on 26/5/2025.

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