Kim F. Hall

Director of Africana Studies

Biography:
Kim F. Hall is the Lucyle Hook Professor of English as well as the Director of Africana Studies. Born in Baltimore, she has a Ph.D. in English from the University of Pennsylvania and an undergraduate degree from Hood College in Frederick, Maryland.
Professor Hall’s research covers the development of Anglo-American race thinking, sixteenth and seventeenth century literature and culture, slavery, material culture and Black Feminism. Her book, Things of Darkness (Cornell University Press, 1996) was the first to use black feminist theory to understand early modern texts. This groundbreaking study of racial discourses in sixteenth and seventeenth century Britain was named an outstanding academic book by Choice magazine and helped generate a new wave of scholarship on race in Shakespeare and Renaissance/Early Modern texts. Her second book, Othello: Texts and Contexts (2006) gives students access to original materials from the seventeenth century on race, marriage and the household, the military, travel and emotions along with the text of Shakespeare’s Othello. She is currently working on a book, tentatively entitled Sweet Taste of Empire, which examines women, labor and race in the Anglo-Caribbean sugar trade during the seventeenth century. She is the recipient of numerous academic and professional honors, including an ACLS fellowship, multiple Mellon and Folger Fellowships, and a NEH/Newberry Fellowship. She has held teaching appointments at Georgetown University, Fordham University and Swarthmore College.
Africana courses taught (in Barnard and elsewhere): Black Women in America (Barnard), Critical Race Theory (Georgetown and Fordham), Black Feminisms (Fordham); Atlantic Crossings: the West Indies in the English Imagination (Fordham); African-American poetry and Drama (Georgetown), Black Theater in the US (Georgetown).
Attention to the African Diaspora has been key to Professor Hall’s scholarship and professional success. For her, one cannot truly understand the history of the modern world--or our future--without understanding the energies unleashed by the African diaspora and the perspectives on race, labor, globalization, human rights and migration developed through the Africana or Black Studies. Since Africana studies is committed to developing ethical ways of understanding and uncovering the lives of black people and their impact on cultures across the globe, it came to the scholarly world with an oppositional critique: that the truth about the lives of black people or people of color cannot be produced solely through traditional department. Thus scholarship on the African diaspora both challenges the organization of knowledge within the academy and works between the disciplines to provide students with the tools to be critical thinkers and global citizens.

Email: khall@barnard.edu

Office Location: 411 Barnard Hall

Office Hours: By Appointment

Telephone: 212-854-9850

Mailing Address: Africana Studies
Barnard College
3009 Broadway
New York, NY 10027

Website: KimFHall.Com

Recommendations: If you need a recommendation from Professor Hall, please alert her at least two weeks in advance and follow the instructions on her recommendation information form.

Biography:	Kim F. Hall is the Lucyle Hook Professor of English as well as the Director of Africana Studies. Born in Baltimore, she has a Ph.D. in English from the University of Pennsylvania and an undergraduate degree from Hood College in Frederick, Maryland. Professor Hall’s research covers the development of Anglo-American race thinking, sixteenth and seventeenth century literature and culture, slavery, material culture and Black Feminism. Her book, Things of Darkness (Cornell University Press, 1996) was the first to use black feminist theory to understand early modern texts. This groundbreaking study of racial discourses in sixteenth and seventeenth century Britain was named an outstanding academic book by Choice magazine and helped generate a new wave of scholarship on race in Shakespeare and Renaissance/Early Modern texts. Her second book, Othello: Texts and Contexts (2006) gives students access to original materials from the seventeenth century on race, marriage and the household, the military, travel and emotions along with the text of Shakespeare’s Othello. She is currently working on a book, tentatively entitled Sweet Taste of Empire, which examines women, labor and race in the Anglo-Caribbean sugar trade during the seventeenth century. She is the recipient of numerous academic and professional honors, including an ACLS fellowship, multiple Mellon and Folger Fellowships, and a NEH/Newberry Fellowship. She has held teaching appointments at Georgetown University, Fordham University and Swarthmore College. Africana courses taught (in Barnard and elsewhere): Black Women in America (Barnard), Critical Race Theory (Georgetown and Fordham), Black Feminisms (Fordham); Atlantic Crossings: the West Indies in the English Imagination (Fordham); African-American poetry and Drama (Georgetown), Black Theater in the US (Georgetown). Attention to the African Diaspora has been key to Professor Hall’s scholarship and professional success. For her, one cannot truly understand the history of the modern world--or our future--without understanding the energies unleashed by the African diaspora and the perspectives on race, labor, globalization, human rights and migration developed through the Africana or Black Studies. Since Africana studies is committed to developing ethical ways of understanding and uncovering the lives of black people and their impact on cultures across the globe, it came to the scholarly world with an oppositional critique: that the truth about the lives of black people or people of color cannot be produced solely through traditional department. Thus scholarship on the African diaspora both challenges the organization of knowledge within the academy and works between the disciplines to provide students with the tools to be critical thinkers and global citizens.
Email:	khall@barnard.edu
Office Location:	411 Barnard Hall
Office Hours:	By Appointment
Telephone:	212-854-9850
Mailing Address:	Africana Studies Barnard College 3009 Broadway New York, NY 10027
Website:	KimFHall.Com
Recommendations:	If you need a recommendation from Professor Hall, please alert her at least two weeks in advance and follow the instructions on her recommendation information form.