Jessica L. Harris

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Assistant Professor
History
St. John's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Ph.D., History, University of California, Los AngelesM.A., History, University of California, Los Angeles M.A., Afro-American Studies, University of California, Los AngelesB.A., History, University of California, Los Angeles

Jessica L. Harris is a scholar of African American History, 20th century U.S. and the World, Black Europe, Women’s History, and Modern Italy, with a particular interest in gender and race, their intersection with material culture, and the subsequent effect on group identities. Her current book project is a transnational cultural history on race and gender relations in Italy and the United States. Placing women at the center of analysis, the book employs the methodological approaches of critical race studies, cultural studies, gender studies, and post-colonial studies to examine the presence of African American women in 20th century Italian television, film, music, and fashion.

BOOKS

Italian Women’s Experiences with American Consumer Culture, 1945-1975: The Italian Mrs. Consumer. Palgrave Macmillan, 2020.

ARTICLES 

"Black America and Italy: African American Women in Post-Fascist Italian Culture." Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 69 (2024): 665-666.

"Permettereste a vostro figlio di sposare Lola?': Latent Fascism American Culture, and Blackness in Postwar Italy." Annali d'Italianistica 41 (2023).  Il facismo nella cultura italiana: 1945-2023: 399-419.

"What is Black America for Italy?  What is Italy for Black America?" Race and Culture in Transnational Exchanges Between Italy and the United States." Studi d'Italianistica nell'Africa Australe/Italian Studies in Southern Africa.  Special Issue Diversity, Decolonisation and Italian Studies 35, no. 1 (2022): 83-86.

“Una rivoluzione sul piccolo schermo?: Le donne afroitaliane nelle fiction televisive italiane contemporanee.” Imago. Studi di cinema e media, n. 19, I semestre 2019: 153-164.

“‘In America è vietato essere brutte’: Advertising American Beauty in the Italian Women’s Magazine Annabella, 1945-1965.” Modern Italy 22 (1): 35-53.

“Noi Donne and Famiglia Cristiana: Communists, Catholics, and American Female Culture in Cold War Italy.” Carte Italiane 2 (11): 93-114.