Françoise N. Hamlin
Hans Rothfels Assistant Professor of History and Africana Studies:
Africana Studies and History
Phone: +1 401 863 3137
Francoise_Hamlin@brown.edu
Current research includes work on the civil rights movement in Mississippi with critical analysis on the trajectory of the movement, the role of gender within the movement, and concepts of success and progress.
Professor Hamlin is currently working on the book, The Story Isn't Finished: Continuing Histories of the Civil Rights Movement, and on an edited anthology (as co-editor), War, Freedom and Patriotism: An Anthology of African American Writing.
Biography
Françoise N. Hamlin (Ph.D. Yale University, 2004) is the Hans Rothfels Assistant Professor of Africana Studies and History and teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in twentieth century African American history, southern history, U.S. history and cultural studies. Prior to joining the faculty at Brown, Professor Hamlin was a DuBois-Mandela-Rodney fellow at the University of Michigan (2004-2005), Assistant Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (2005-2007) and a Charles Warren Center Fellow at Harvard University (2007-2008).
Interests
My current research includes work on the civil rights movement in Mississippi with critical analysis on the trajectory of the movement, the role of gender within the movement, and concepts of success and progress.
My manuscript, _"The Story Isn't Finished": Continuing Histories of the Civil Rights Movement_, studies the civil rights movement in Coahoma County, Mississippi from 1951 to the present. Three points of inquiry frame this work. First, I reinstate women's roles as paramount to the successful maneuverings at the local level and I recast their own understanding of those roles in their own terms, using the trope of motherhood and motherwork to reinterpret leadership. Second, I track the movement of organizations in the local area, analyzing those that passed through and those that stayed in order to better understand when and how organizations succeed in their goals given the multitude of variables the members confronted, and I utilize my concept of flexible loyalties to describe how local people consciously used the groups to fulfill their own needs, Finally I reassess the difference that community activism and group cooperation made for the success of social programs. By ending the project at the eve of the millennium, I question the conventional periodization of the civil rights movement as has been memorialized by political, social and cultural historians. How do we calculate the success of a movement?
_War, Freedom and Patriotism: An Anthology of African American Writing_, is co-edited with Yemisi Jimoh (UMass-Amherst) and documents African American experiences during wartime in the United States. Beginning with the Revolutionary War and ending with the current War on Terror, this book contains historical essays to contextualize the moments with all the political and social nuances, followed by selections of literary texts written by African Americans describing black experiences in war and their thoughts on the sometimes contradictory notions of patriotism and freedom. It is currently under contract at Rutgers University Press for anticipated publication in 2009.
Degrees
Ph.D.
Awards
Selected Honors and Awards:
•Charles Warren Center Fellow, Harvard University. 2007-2008.
•Franklin L. Riley Dissertation Prize, Mississippi Historical Society. 2006.
•C. Vann Woodward Dissertation Prize, Southern Historical Association. 2005
•Du Bois-Mandela-Rodney Fellowship, Center for Afroamerican and African Studies, University of Michigan. 2004-2005.
•Sylvia Ardyn Boone Prize for work in African American culture & history, Yale University. 2004.
•Albert J. Beveridge Research Grant, American Historical Association. 2003.
•Huggins-Quarles Award, Organization of American Historians. 2002.
Affiliations
American Historical Association
Organization of American Historians
Southern Historical Association
Southern Association for Women Historians (membership committee member, 2005-2007)
Coordinating Council for Women in History (graduate student representative, 2002-2004)
American Studies Association
Association for the Study of African American Life & History.
Teaching
Courses taught include:
• Rethinking the Civil Rights Movement
• Autobiography of the Civil Rights Movement
• Formation of Modern American Culture
• Social Change in the 1960s
• The Black Freedom Struggle Since 1945
• Racializing Britain From World War II To The Present
Funded Research
Charles Warren Center Fellow, Harvard University, 2007-2008.
Du Bois-Mandela-Rodney Fellowship, Center for Afroamerican and African Studies, University of Michigan, 2004-2005.
Albert J. Beveridge Research Grant, American Historical Association, 2003.
Huggins-Quarles Award, Organization of American Historians, 2002.
John F. Kennedy Foundation Research Grant, 2002.
Summer Research Fellowship, I Advanced Study of Religion Institute at Yale, Pew Charitable Trusts, 2002.
Moody Grant-in-aid, The Lyndon Baines Johnson Foundation, 2001.