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Hilary Jones

Biography:

Hilary Jones teaches and researches about West Africa and its interconnected histories with Europe and the Americas. Jones studied at University Cheikh Anta Diop (Dakar, Senegal) during her junior year at Spelman College. In 2003, she earned the PhD in African History from Michigan State University, minoring in Comparative Black History and African Art History. Jones’ first book, The Métis of Senegal: Urban Life and Politics in French West Africa (Indiana University Press, 2013) examines multi-racial identity through the lens of Senegal’s Afro-European population who played key roles in the life of Senegal’s nineteenth century Atlantic and French colonial towns. Her second monograph, in progress, considers the problem of the stranger in French West Africa from World War I until the dawn of de-colonization in 1950. Through case studies of Lebanese and Syrian immigrants, British West African followers of Marcus Garvey, French Caribbeans in the colonial service, and West African students who travelled to Paris, Jones provides a fresh perspective on the use of race by colonial empires, the migrations of colonial subjects in the aftermath of World War I, and how West Africa became a site for building modern diasporas in the interwar era. The recipient of a Fulbright IIE Scholar award and a Senior National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship from the Council on American Overseas Studies Centers, Jones conducted field research in Senegal, Martinique, and Guadeloupe for this project. She teaches HIS 100/AAS 100: Introduction to African Studies, AAS 301, Introduction to the African Diaspora, and HIS 253/AAS 253: History of Precolonial Africa.  Jones also offers seminars on Slavey and the Slave Trade in Africa, African Gender History, Black France, and Africa and America.  Hilary Jones currently serves as Director of Graduate Studies for the Department of History.

Research Interests:
African History
African Diaspora
Atlantic History
French Empire
Women
Gender and Sexuality
Book

The Métis of Senegal: Urban Life and Politics in French West Africa. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2013.

Selected Articles

Hilary Jones and Caroline Faria. “A Darling of the Beauty Trade: Race, Care, and the Lebanese Styling of Synthetic Hair.” Cultural Geographies 27,1(2020): 85-99. “Women, Race, and Ethnicity.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History. Oxford University Press, 2020 (online). Hilary Jones and Emily Clark, "Transatlantic Currents of Orientalism: New Orleans Quadroons and Saint-Louis, Senegal Signares," in New Orleans, Louisiana and Saint Louis, Senegal: Mirror Cities in the Atlantic World, 1659-2000s. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 2019. “Women, Family, and Daily Life in Senegal’s Nineteenth Century Atlantic Towns.” In African Women in the Atlantic World: Property, Vulnerability, and Mobility 1680-1880. Edited by Mariana Candido and Adam Jones. London: James Currey Press, 2019. “Originaire Women and Political Life in Senegal’s Four Communes.” In Black French Women and the Struggle for Equality 1848-2015, edited by Felix Germain and Sylaine Larcher. University of Nebraska Press, 2018, Chapter 1. “The Signares, mixed race women of Senegambia, sixteenth and eighteenth centuries/Les Signares, femmes métisses de Sénégambie, XVIe-XVIIIe siècles, in Sexe & Colonies: An Illustrated Catalog of Images and Documents, edited by Pascal Blanchard, Nicolas Bancel, Gilles Böetsch, Rachel Jean-Baptiste, Christelle Taraud, and Dominic Thomas. Paris: ACHAC, 2018. “Fugitive Slaves and Christian Evangelism in French West Africa: A Protestant Mission in late Nineteenth-century Senegal,” Slavery & Abolition 38:1(2017): 76-94. “Rethinking Politics in the Colony: The Métis of Senegal and Electoral Politics in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century,” Journal of African History 53, 3 (2012): 325-344