Mary Ellen Curtin Associate Professor CAS | CRGC | Critical Race Gender and Culture Studies

Additional Positions at AU: Associate Professor
Degrees: PhD Duke University 1992
Favorite Spot on Campus: Coffee at the Dav
Bio: Mary Ellen Curtin is a historian of modern African American and women's social and political history. Her first book BLACK PRISONERS AND THEIR WORLD, ALABAMA, 1865-1900 (University Press of Virginia, 2000) investigated the origins of the convict leasing system in Alabama and explored the lives of Black convict coal miners and their communities after emancipation. Her latest book, SHE CHANGED THE NATION: BARBARA JORDAN'S LIFE AND LEGACY IN BLACK POLITICS (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2024) examines the life and significance of Texas congresswoman Barbara Jordan (1936-1996), the first Black woman from the South elected to Congress. Dr Curtin served as a consultant for the PBS documentary Slavery by Another Name, (2012) a history of African Americans and forced labor in the South. She teaches courses in American Studies, Af/Am, and WGSS on poverty, incarceration, Washington DC, and politics. In the spring of 2025, she will be in residence at Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland as a Fulbright Distinguished Scholar in the Humanities and Social Sciences.

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