Graduate Faculty

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Professor of History; and Co-director of the RCHA seminar, "Black Power and White Supremacy"
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Office: 307 Van Dyck Hall
Education: Ph.D., Department of History, Cornell University; M.A., Department of History, Cornell University; B.A., Department of History, Stanford University
Webpage: https://drlesliealexander.com/

RESEARCH INTERESTS

I specialize in early African American and African Diaspora history, particularly the history of slavery, Black political and intellectual thought, and resistance movements. My research is dedicated to excavating the social, political, and cultural history of slavery and the people who fought against it. My past, current, and future projects are all driven by a common passionate intellectual curiosity; namely, how the legacy of slavery and Black activism have shaped the social, cultural, and political contours of the United States and the broader Atlantic World.

I am especially interested in the myriad ways that slavery and its afterlives have shaped (and continue to influence) the United States and the Atlantic World historically and contemporarily.

PUBLICATIONS

Books

Fear of a Black Republic: Haiti and the Birth of Black Internationalism in the United States, Champaign and Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2022.
Ideas in Unexpected Places: Reimagining the Boundaries of Black Intellectual History. Co-editor, Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, April 2022.
African or American?: Black Identity and Political Activism in New York City, 1784-1861. Champaign and Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008. Awarded the National Council for Black Studies prize for Outstanding Scholarship in the Field of Africana Studies.

Articles and Book Chapters

“Fear” in The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story, ed. Nikole Hannah Jones, One World, November 2021.
“Black Utopia: Haiti and Black Transnational Consciousness in the Early Nineteenth Century,” William and Mary Quarterly, April 2021.
“We Have Not Yet Forgiven Haiti For Being Black,” Black Perspectives, December 7, 2020.
“‘A United and Valiant People:’ Black Visions of Haiti in the Immediate Aftermath of Haitian Independence,” in Ideas in Unexpected Places: Reimagining Black Intellectual History, eds. Leslie Alexander, Brandon Byrd, and Russell Rickford, Northwestern University Press, April 2022.
“The Birth of a Nation is an Epic Fail,” The Nation, October 6, 2016.
“A Land of Promise: Emigration and Pennsylvania’s Black Elite in the Era of the Haitian Revolution” in The Civil War in Pennsylvania: The African American Experience. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Senator John Heinz History Center, 2013. Recipient of the 2014 American Association of State and Local History Award of Merit.
“A Pact With the Devil?: The United States and the Fate of Modern Haiti,” Origins e-History, online journal, February 2011.
“The Black Republic: The Influence of the Haitian Revolution on Black Political Consciousness, 1816-1862,” in African Americans and the Haitian Revolution: Selected Essays and Historical Documents, eds. Maurice Jackson and Jacqueline Bacon. Routledge, 2009. Republished in Haitian History: New Perspectives, ed., Alyssa Sepinwall. New York: Routledge Press, 2012.
“The New York City Draft Riot of 1863,” in The Encyclopedia of American Race Riots, eds. James Upton and Walter Rucker. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2006.
“The Challenge of Race: Rethinking the Position of Black Women in the Field of Women’s History.” Journal of Women’s History, volume 16, no. 4, December 2004.
Republished as: “Rethinking the Position of Black Women in American Women’s History” in Major Problems in American Women’s History, eds. Mary Beth Norton, Ruth M. Alexander, and Thomas Paterson. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2007.

AWARDS

Research Fellow, Society for the Humanities, Cornell University
Audre Lorde Humanities Activism Fellowship, Institute for Humanities Research
Distinguished Visiting Scholar, Arizona State University
Ford Foundation Senior Fellowship
Fellow, Leadership Academy, University of Oregon
Provost’s Senior Humanist Fellowship, Oregon Humanities Center
Award for Faculty Excellence, Black Student Association, The Ohio State University
Presidential Award for Service, National Council for Black Studies
Distinguished Faculty Mentor Award, given by OSU Outstanding Senior
Fire and Focus Award for Distinguished Teaching
National Council for Black Studies Award for Distinguished Scholarship
National Council for Black Studies Award for Outstanding Service
Arts and Humanities Diversity Enhancement Award
University Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching
University Distinguished Diversity Enhancement Award
College of Humanities Diversity Enhancement Award
Ford Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellowship
Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship

SELECTED SERVICE

Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora
- Immediate Past President and Advisory Board member, 2019-present
- President, 2015-2019
- Vice President, 2013-2015
- Executive Board Member, 2009-2019
Black Perspectives
- Editorial Board
Institute for Humanities Research Advisory Board
- Arizona State University, 2020-2022
Journal of African American History
- Editorial Board
Montpelier Foundation
- Board Member
National Council for Black Studies
- Executive Board Member, 2010-present
University Senate, The Ohio State University, 2010-2016
University Senate Steering Committee, The Ohio State University, 2014-2016
Faculty Council, The Ohio State University, 2010-2016
- Chair, 2013-2014

PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS

Association for the Study of African American Life and History, Lifetime Member
Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora, Lifetime Member
Association of Black Women Historians, Lifetime Member
Association of Caribbean Historians
Caribbean Studies Association
Haitian Studies Association
National Council for Black Studies
Organization of American Historians
Society of Senior Ford Fellows

Associate Professor of South Asian Literatures
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Tel: : 848-445-4307
Office: 15 Seminary Place Room 6168, College Ave Campus