Renee Romano
Education
Ph.D., Stanford University, American History, 1996
M.A., Stanford University, History, 1992
B.A., Yale University, Summa Cum Laude, Distinction in History and Political Science, 1990
Academic Experience
Chair, African American Studies Program, Wesleyan University, 2003-2004, 2005-
Associate Professor of History and African American Studies, Wesleyan University, 2003-
Assistant Professor of History and African American Studies, Wesleyan University, 1996-2003
Visiting Instructor, Mount Holyoke College, Spring 1996
Books
Editor (with Leigh Raiford), The Civil Rights Movement in American Memory (University of Georgia Press, May 2006).
Race Mixing: Black-White Marriage in Postwar America (Harvard University Press, 2003).
Paperback edition published by University of Florida Press in April 2006
Articles and Chapters in Books
“Introduction: The Struggle over Memory,” co-written with Leigh Raiford, in The Civil Rights Movement in American Memory, ed.
Renee Romano and Leigh Raiford (University of Georgia Press, 2006), xi-xxiv.
“Narratives of Redemption: The Birmingham Church Bombing and the Construction of Civil Rights Memory” in
The Civil Rights Movement in American Memory, 96-133.
“No Diplomatic Immunity: African Diplomats, the State Department and Civil Rights, 1961-1964,”
Journal of American History 87(September 2000): 546-579.
“Immoral Conduct: White Women, Racial Transgressions and Child Custody Disputes, 1945-1985” in “Bad” Mothers:
The Politics of Blame in 20th-Century America, ed. Molly Ladd-Taylor and Lauri Umansky (New York University Press, 1998), pp. 230-251.
“Mixed Marriage” in the Oxford Encyclopedia of African American History (Oxford University Press, forthcoming).
Contributor to African Americans, 10 volume biographical set (Scholastic, forthcoming, 2006).
Contributor to Civil Rights in the United States, ed. Waldo Martin and Patricia Sullivan (Macmillan Reference USA, 2000).
Works in Progress
Racial Reckonings: Trials, Truth Commissions, and other Efforts at Racial Reconcilation in the New South
This monograph explores the over twenty cases of
crimes committed during the civil rights era that have been reopened in the
last fifteen years. Project description available upon request.
Book Reviews
Review of Judith Smith, Visions of Belonging: Family Stories, Popular Culture, and Postwar Democracy, 1940-1960,
American Historical Review, forthcoming.
Review of Alex Lubin,Romance and Rights: The Politics of Interracial Intimacy, 1945-1954,
Journal of Social History, forthcoming.
Review of Charles F. Robinson II, Dangerous Liaisons: Sex and Love in the Segregated South, Journal of American History, 91 (2004): 1044-1045.
Review of Brenda Gayle Plummer, ed., Window on Freedom: Race, Civil Rights, and Foreign Affairs, 1945-1988,
Journal of Southern History 70 (May 2004): 471-472.
Review of James H. Meriwether, Proudly We Can Be Africans: Black Americans and Africa, 1935-1961,
Journal of American History 89 (March 2003): 1602-1603.
Review of Constance Curry, et al., Deep in Our Hearts: Nine White Women in the Freedom Movement, The Alabama Review 55 (October 2002): 307-308.
Review of Azza Layton, International Politics and Civil Rights Policies in the United States, 1941-1960,
Journal of American History 88 (September 2001): 726-727.
Review of Martha Hodes, White Women, Black Men: Illicit Sex in the Nineteenth-Century South,
Plantation Society in the Americas 6 (Spring 1999): 110-114.
Review of Cathy Cohen’s, The Boundaries of Blackness: AIDS and the Breakdown of Black Politics, POZ, August 1999, p. 27.
Fellowships and Grants
Project Grant, Wesleyan University, Summer 2006
Grant from the Connecticut Humanities Council to direct “Race and Membership: A History of Citizenship in the United States,”
Summer Institute for Secondary School Teachers, August 2006
Project Grant, Wesleyan University, Summer 2005
Grant from the Connecticut Humanities Council to direct “Teaching the Civil Rights
Movement: An Interdisciplinary Perspective,” Summer Institute for Secondary Teachers, June 2005
Faculty Fellow, Center for the Humanities, Wesleyan University, Fall 2004
Mellon Summer Research Grant, Summer 2004
Project Grant, Wesleyan University, Summer 2002
Faculty Fellow, Center for the Humanities, Wesleyan University, Fall 1998
Carol A. Baker Memorial Prize for Outstanding Junior Faculty in the PAC, Spring 1998
National Endowment for the Humanities, Summer Institute, “Teaching the History of the Southern Civil Rights Movement,”
Harvard University, Summer 1997
Pedagogical Grant, Wesleyan University, Spring 1997
Wesleyan Fund for Innovation Grant, Fall 1997
Research Associate, Five College Women’s Studies Research Ctr, South Hadley, MA, 1995-1996
Stanford Humanities Center, Dissertation Resident Fellowship, 1994-1995
James W. Lyons Award for Service to the University, Stanford University, May 1994
Weter Grant for Dissertation Support, Stanford History Department, Fall 1995
Mellon Dissertation Write-Up Grant, 1994
Jacob K. Javits Fellowship, 1990-1994
Phi Beta Kappa, elected in 1989
Conference Presentations
“Narratives of Redemption: The Edgar Ray Killen Trial and Memory in Contemporary Trials for Civil Rights Era Crimes,”
Annual Meeting of the Organization of American Historians, Washington, DC, April 2006.
“A New Site for Struggle: The Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Fight for Racial Justice,”
Annual Meeting of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, Buffalo, NY, October 2005.
Panel Participant, “Same Sex Unions and the Constructions of Marriage,”
Annual Meeting of the American Studies Association, Atlanta, GA, November 2004.
“The (Inter)National Stories We Tell: The Consequences of Remembering the Civil Rights Movement in its International Context,”
Annual Conference of the Organization of American Historians, Boston, March 2004.
Panel Participant, “Complicating the Narrative: Teaching Gender, Sexuality, and Race in Survey Courses,”
Annual Meeting of the Organization of American Historians, Memphis, TN, April 2003.
“Race and the Right Wing: Using Interracial Marriage to Explore Conservative Ideology,”
Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Storrs, CT, June 2002.
“Remembering the Movement: The Civil Rights Movement in Literature,”
White Supremacy/Black Liberation Conference, Stanford University, November 2001.
“‘Love is the Answer, Not Legislation’: The Place of Interracial Relationships in Conservative Writings on Race,”
Annual Meeting of the American Studies Association, Montreal, October 1999.
“Defining ‘Authentic Blackness’: Interracial Relationships and the Politics of Race in the 1960s,”
Annual Meeting of the Organization of American Historians, Toronto, April 1999.
“Deep are the Roots: World War II, Interracial Marriage and Resistance to Social Change,”
American Historical Association Pacific Coast Branch Meeting, San Diego, CA, August 1998.
“Protecting Whiteness: State Appeals Courts and Custody Disputes Involving Interracially Married White Women in the United States, 1945-1985,”
Annual Meeting of the American Society of Legal History, Minneapolis, MN, October 1997.
“Sex at the Schoolhouse Door: Fears of ‘Amalgamation’ in the Southern Response to Brown v. Board of Education,”
Annual Conference of the American Historical Association, New York City, January 1997.
“‘Serious Rebellion’: White Women’s Racial Transgressions and Child Custody Disputes in the United States, 1945-1985,”
Berkshire Conference, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, June 1996.
“Maintaining Race: White Women, Black Women and Interracial Marriage in the U.S., 1945-1990,”
Five College Women’s Studies Research Center, South Hadley, MA, February 1996.
“Politicizing Love: Competing Visions of Black-White Interracial Marriage in the 1970s,”
Annual Meeting of the Organization of American Historians, Washington, D.C., April 1995.
“‘Would You Want Your Daughter to Marry One?’ Opposition to Interracial Marriage Among Whites in the 1940s and 50s,”
Comparative Gender History Workshop, Stanford University, November 1994.
“‘Burden on Our Backs’: The State Department and the Battle for Civil Rights, 1961-1963,”
Toward a History of the 1960s Conference, Madison, WI, April 1993.
Invited Talks
“The Civil Rights Movement in American Memory,” National Civil Rights Museum. Memphis, TN, June 21, 2006;
Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, June 22, 2006.
"Justice Delayed or Justice Denied: The Contemporary Prosecutions of Civil Rights Era Crimes,”
Public Affairs Center Lunch Discussions, Wesleyan University, October 2005.
Featured guest on program on the reopening of the Emmett Till case, “Odyssey,”
Chicago Public Radio, June 17. 2005.
“Narratives of Redemption: The Birmingham Church Bombing Trials and the Quest for Justice,”
Wesleyan Center for the Humanities, Middletown, CT, October 2004.
“Power and the Press: The Movements Shaped by the Press—Women, Anti-War, Civil Rights,”
National History Day Summer Institute, Baltimore, MD, July 2004.
“Race Mixing,” WesSeminar at Wesleyan commencement/reunion weekend, May 2004.
Consultant and Guest Expert for “Sleeping with the Enemy,”
a 30-minute BBC Radio Program on interracial relationships in the civil rights movement, July 2003.
“Erosion of a Taboo?” Black-White Interracial Marriage in Postwar America,”
Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, April 2003.
Featured guest, “In Pursuit of Truth,” WHAT Radio, Philadelphia, April 2003.
Interviewed for program on interracial relationships in film on Clear Reception,
WTMD, National Public Radio, Baltimore, August 2002.
“Going Beyond the African American Community, 1968-2002: Women, Latinos, Native Americans, Gays and Lesbians, and other Minorities,”
100 Years of the Civil Rights Movement, National History Day Summer Institute, Atlanta, July 2002.
“‘Love is the Answer’: Interracial Relationships in Contemporary American Political Discourse,” Yale University, November 2000.
“Teaching the Southern Civil Rights Movement,” panel participant,
Jubilee Week opening of the Albany Civil Rights Movement Museum, Albany, GA, November 1998.
“‘Love is the Answer, Not Legislation’: Interracial Relationships and the Trope of Progress,”
Wesleyan Center for the Humanities, Middletown, CT, November 1998.
“Crossing the Line: An Overview,” Stanford Humanities Center, Stanford. CA, December 1994.
Conference Sessions, Chair and/or Commentator
Chair, “The Place of Antiracism in 1940s and 1950s America,” Annual Meeting of the American Studies Association, Washington, D.C., November 2005.
Commentator, “Sexuality and Political Contests” at the North American Sexualities/Post-World War II Conference, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, April 2004.
Commentator, “Constructing Local and Immigrant Identity in Hawai'i Through Responses to Violence,” American Studies Association Annual Conference, Hartford, CT, October 2003.
Chair of session at 2003 Conference at the Center for the Humanities, “The 1950s and 1960s in North America: A Queer View,” Wesleyan University, April 2003.
Chair, “Race and Family in Wartime America: Illegitimacy, Immigration, and the Church,” Annual Meeting of the Organization of American Historians, Washington, D.C., April 2002.
Moderator, “Queering Sex, Working Sexuality,” At the Meridians Conference, Northampton, Massachusetts, March 2001.
Professional Service
Director and Presenter, “Race and Membership: The History of Citizenship in the United States,” Summer Institute for Secondary School Teachers, Wesleyan University, August 2006.
Faculty Consultant and Presenter, Summer Institute on the Civil Rights Movement, Bridgewater State University, June 2006.
Director and Presenter, “Teaching the Civil Rights Movement: An Interdisciplinary Approach,” Summer Institute for Secondary School Teachers, Wesleyan University, June 2005.
Consultant on incorporating Ethnic Studies into the curriculum, Connecticut College, April 2004.
Grant Reviewer, National Endowment for the Humanities, Research Awards for Faculty at
Historically Black Colleges, Hispanic-Serving Institutions, and Tribal Colleges, Washington, D.C., August 2003
Member, Local Editorial Board, Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism, 2001-2003
Member, Committee on the Status of Women in the Historical Profession, Organization of American Historians, 2001-2003 (Chair, 2001-2002)
Book Manuscripts reviewed for New York University Press, Harvard University Press, University of North Carolina Press, University of Florida Press, University of Georgia Press
Article manuscripts reviewed for Journal of American History, Meridians, Gender and History, Journal of Family History, American Sociological Review, Journal of Southern History
Courses Taught at Wesleyan
American Society and Culture in the 1950s
Introduction to Modern African American History
Contesting the Past: Historical Memory in the United States
History of United States Foreign Relations
History of the Southern Civil Rights Movement
World War II in the United States and Japan
Women and the American Experience
Race and Power: The Creation and Practice of American Democracy
Race and Sexuality in American History
America at War: The United States in World War II
Topics in African-American Family History
Wesleyan University Service
Campus-Wide Service
Davenport Grant Prize Committee, Spring 2006
Discussant, “Using Technology in the Classroom,” Academic Roundtable Lunch, January 2006
Guest Speaker, “Affirmative Action and Diversity: What’s the Difference?” Talking Points
Presentation Sponsored by the Faculty Executive Committee, the WSA, and the Office of Residential Life, December 2005
Discussant, “Race in the Classroom,” Academic Roundtable, April 2004
Ethnic Studies Committee, Fall 2003-
Search Committee, Academic Computing Manager for the Social Sciences, Spring 2003
Committee for Pedagogical Renewal, 2000-2004
Co-Coordinator, Faculty Seminar on Intersectionality, 2002-2003
Mellon Fellowship Student Advisor, 1998-2000, 2002
Truman Fellowship Selection Committee, 2001-2002
Participant, “Teaching Small Classes” New Faculty Orientation, Fall 2001
Macy Internship Selection Committee, 1997-1999
Faculty Representative, Prefrosh Recruiting Meeting, Spring 1999
African-American Studies Program Service
Director, Center for African American Studies, 2006-
Chair, African American Studies Program, July 2003-June 2004, July 2005-
Moderator, “The Debate over Same Sex Marriage,” AFAM Pizza and Policy Lunch, Oct. 2005
Co-Chair, Search Committee, Position in African American Studies and Economics, Fall 2003
Chair, Curriculum Committee, 2001-2003
Search Committee, 19th Century African American History, 2000-2001
History Department Service
Discussant, “New Questions, New Visions of the Past,” History Department Lunch Series, February 2006
Pedagogy Committee, 2001-2002
Honors Committee, 1997-98
Curriculum Committee, 1996-98
American Studies Program Service
Core Faculty, American Studies
Member, Board of the Center for the Americas, 2000-2001, 2003-2004, 2005-
Search Committee for Mellon Post-Doctoral candidate in Native American Studies,
Center for the Americas, 1997-98
Professional Affiliations
American Historical Association
American Studies Association
Association for the Study of African American Life and History
Organization of American Historians
Current Research Interests
I am currently working on a variety of projects related to the historical memory
of the civil rights movement and the reopening of civil rights era legal cases.
My current book project, Justice Delayed or Justice Denied,
argues that the contemporary phenomenon of prosecuting old men for civil rights crimes committed long ago
provides a window into the workings of racial politics today.
These trials are used to highlight America’s racial progress since the 1960s
and the supposed colorblindness of the American political system.
While the contemporary prosecution of old crimes does provide some comfort to families of victims and some modicum of justice,
these cases present racism in the United States as the prejudicial acts of a handful of individuals
and thus they do little to deepen Americans’ understanding of institutional, structural, or legal racism.
I am also currently working on an article about the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission,
the first commission of its kind in the United States.
In the article, I compare what is happening with the GTRC to what is taking place in these legal trials throughout the South.
Finally, I am preparing an article that explores the ways in which current scholarship about the relationship between the Cold War
and the civil rights movement is being incorporated into public historical memory in civil rights museums.
|
