Faculty Interview - Jeannette Eileen Jones
Department of History
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06/03/2019
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This is an interview with Prof. Jeannette Eileen Jones
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- [00:00:04.950]Hi, I'm Janette Eileen Jones.
- [00:00:06.810]I'm an Associate Professor of History and Ethnic Studies
- [00:00:09.570]at the University of Nebraska Lincoln.
- [00:00:16.737]"To Enter Africa from America" is a digital project
- [00:00:19.480]that I'm working on with three co-collaborators:
- [00:00:22.250]Nemata Blyden, who is Associate Professor
- [00:00:24.427]of History and International Relations
- [00:00:27.210]at George Washington University.
- [00:00:29.640]Nadia Nurhussein, who is Associate Professor of English
- [00:00:33.170]in Africana Studies at the John Hopkins University.
- [00:00:37.330]And John Cullen Gruesser, who is a Research Professor
- [00:00:41.820]at Sam Houston University in the department of English.
- [00:00:46.100]And so basically what we're interested in is how the U.S.
- [00:00:49.978]engages with Africa between the years of 1862 and 1919.
- [00:01:00.440]And what what we're trying to do is situate that engagement
- [00:01:04.260]in the history of the so called New Imperialism,
- [00:01:07.330]or Global Imperialism that marks the late 19th century.
- [00:01:11.350]So in some ways, we are very much unidirectional,
- [00:01:14.812]that is looking at U.S. figures, whether they are diplomats,
- [00:01:20.490]or travelers, whether they're black or white,
- [00:01:24.190]mostly black or white, but other ethnicities
- [00:01:26.880]who are going to Africa during this period.
- [00:01:30.190]We're also, although interested in kind of
- [00:01:32.930]the other direction.
- [00:01:34.010]So, what Africans are coming to the United states
- [00:01:38.010]at that same time as free people
- [00:01:40.400]now that slavery has ended, the slave trade.
- [00:01:43.060]And we are focusing primarily on countries like Liberia
- [00:01:50.280]and the Kingdom of Ethiopia, or what's Abyssinia,
- [00:01:55.430]but we're also looking at other people who are coming
- [00:01:57.490]from the colonies to the United States at that point.
- [00:02:04.340]So, it's an interesting project because we're
- [00:02:08.190]really doing some network analysis.
- [00:02:10.360]We're interested in relational aspects of that.
- [00:02:14.000]We're looking for latent synergies that may not,
- [00:02:17.090]you know, that we can't really track
- [00:02:20.180]with conventional research in terms of a monograph.
- [00:02:23.800]And so really trying to figure out how people
- [00:02:26.170]are connected, to what extent are they connected,
- [00:02:29.020]and how are they thinking about and encountering Arica
- [00:02:32.390]during this period as Americans.
- [00:02:33.900]But then also how Africans are responding
- [00:02:36.190]to their presence in Africa.
- [00:02:43.460]Well the main project for TEAA is going to be the website.
- [00:02:46.550]That is the major output, and on that website,
- [00:02:50.320]we are also going to have some scholarly articles
- [00:02:53.260]that will be written by the four of us, the collaborators.
- [00:02:57.150]But we're also aiming to put together a symposium,
- [00:03:01.620]and then from that symposium, a collection of edited essays
- [00:03:05.670]where we invite people to go to the site, use the materials,
- [00:03:08.735]and write original, or if they want to do synthetic,
- [00:03:12.090]but really, original essays
- [00:03:13.950]that will be featured in the volume, and so that is the goal
- [00:03:18.270]in our three year project.
- [00:03:32.710]So I'm in the process of writing a second monograph,
- [00:03:36.040]which is, and very much related to some of the work
- [00:03:38.400]that we're doing with this digital project.
- [00:03:41.140]It's called "American Africa: U.S. Empire Race
- [00:03:45.300]and the African Question 1821 to 1919".
- [00:03:49.640]And currently it's six chapters, really an introduction,
- [00:03:54.950]conclusion, and five really main body chapters.
- [00:03:57.730]Five to six where I'm looking at different aspects
- [00:04:00.900]of U.S. engagement with Africa.
- [00:04:03.820]Heavily focused on the U.S. Consular Service,
- [00:04:07.280]not exclusively, but they are the featured individuals
- [00:04:12.151]in the narratives that I'm going to be telling.
- [00:04:17.840]But I'm also interested in non-state actors,
- [00:04:20.970]and so we also have people
- [00:04:22.730]who are not officially associated
- [00:04:25.223]with the U.S. government, the Department of State,
- [00:04:29.170]who are going over to Africa and engaging in kind of
- [00:04:32.766]cultural diplomacy or just in their own kind of
- [00:04:36.050]autonomous work, whether it's as missionaries,
- [00:04:38.930]or travelers, or businessmen, businesswomen, etc.
- [00:04:44.500]And what I'm trying to trace is how we understand
- [00:04:48.810]that engagement as being framed around a set of
- [00:04:51.780]political questions.
- [00:04:53.360]The main question being the African Question,
- [00:04:55.570]like what does it mean from a Eurocentric perspective,
- [00:05:01.420]what is Africa's place in the world?
- [00:05:03.670]And as it's framed by Europeans and also by Americans,
- [00:05:08.410]you get a particular discourse that dominates, kind of,
- [00:05:12.320]the Atlantic world.
- [00:05:13.710]And what I'm interested in is the kind of understudy role
- [00:05:16.870]of the U.S. and Americans in framing those discourses,
- [00:05:20.825]contributing to them, and really trying to shape
- [00:05:23.911]some of what takes place in the continent on the ground.
- [00:05:29.650]To what extent they're successful in their own endeavors
- [00:05:34.730]is what the book is going to be talking about as well.
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