African American Studies

Courtney Joseph

Courtney Joseph

Associate Professor of History and African American Studies

History

Specialization

African American History and Culture
Haiti and its Diaspora
Women and Gender Studies
Hip Hop Culture

Education

PhD in History, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
MA in History, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
BA in History, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, with a minor in African American Studies

Courses

FIYS 177: Black Activism in Chicago
History 202: African American History, 1619–1865

History 203: African American History, 1865–2016
History 275: Black Her-story: Black Women’s History of the US
History 300: The Historian's Workshop
History 317: The History of Black Television
African American Studies 110: Intro to African American Studies
African American Studies 228: History of Hip Hop
African American Studies 305: Women and Gender in Hip Hop

Selected Publications

Haitian American Museum of Chicago Oral History Digital Archive

C. Pierre Joseph. “Diasporic ambassadors: Black women, pageants, and building connections across the African diaspora in the late twentieth century.” African and Black Diaspora: An International Journal, Volume 14, Issue 1, 2022

C. Pierre Joseph. “Life in Bronzeville: The Humanist Poetry of Gwendolyn Brooks,” in A History of Chicago Literature, edited by Frederik Bryn Køhlert. (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, Forthcoming).   

C. Pierre Joseph. “Being Black and Bicultural: Racial and Ethnic Identity Formation of Haitian Americans in Chicago,” in Pan African Spaces: Essays on Black Transnationalism, edited by Msia Kibona Clark, Loy Azalia, and Phiwokuhle Mnyandu. (Lexington Books, Lanham MD: 2019). 

C. Pierre Joseph. “Book Review: A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History by Jeanne Theoharis,” in The Public HistorianVolume 40Number 4November 2018.

Selected Conference Presentations

IEHS Roundtable Discussion: “New Directions in African American, African Diasporic, and Immigration History” Organization of American Historians 2022 Annual Meeting 

Roundtable Discussion, Why Black Midwestern History Matters, Midwestern History Association Conference, 2021

Presenter: “The Sanctity of Stories: Haitians and Religion in Chicago” 2018  The Chicago Colloquium on Digital Humanities and Computer Science, Loyola University

Presenter: “Haiti and Chicago: A Hidden History” 2018  Black Communities Conference, University of North Carolina

Presenter:  “A Moment of Despair:  Haitians in Chicago, 1957-1985” 2017  University of Texas at San Antonio 10th Annual African American Studies Symposium: Intersectional Black Identities

Presenter: “Duvalierism, the Changing Idea of Haiti and the Formation of the Haitian Diaspora in Chicago, 1957–1985”  2017 
Harvard University Graduate Conference on International History: Migration, Immigration, and Diaspora

Selected Public History Events

October 2022 History Center of Lake Forest-Lake Bluff “Finding William Peyton: Early Black Presence at Lake Forest College” 

January 2021 Newberry Library: The Great Migration, Reconsidered

September 2020: Chicago Humanities Festival “ Monuments and Memorials

June 2020: Marlborough School interview on Juneteenth

June 2020: Muslim TV interview “ Why We Rebel: Then and Now

October 2017: TedXLFC Talk “ Walking the Curved Line to the PhD

Honors and Awards

Most Outstanding Advisor, 2019, Lake Forest College

Bright Institute Fellowship 2018-2020, Knox College

Digital Chicago Fellowship 2018, Lake Forest College