Charlene F.
Charlene F.
Ready to take the next step?
M.A. History, Class of 2014
My master’s thesis research explored the race riots of the Red Summer of 1919 and the implementation and consequences of the use of martial law during the 1918 and 1919 race riots in Charleston, South Carolina. I am currently a Ph.D. candidate in History at Indiana University-Bloomington.
The M.A. in History gave me a pretty clear idea of what I wanted to study and an overview of the methodologies available to approach my topic. From there, I had a clearer vision of why I wanted to pursue my Ph.D. and what research I sought to pursue. Each year of doctoral study has helped me build and expand my research interests into a viable dissertation topic, and a possible book, but I developed that foundation in the M.A. program.
My current research explores the experiences of confined African American women in Kentucky from Reconstruction to the Progressive Era, specifically illuminating the lives of confined black women by examining places other than carceral locales as arenas of confinement, including mental health asylums and domestic spaces. I seek to explore how these women both defied and defined confinement through their incarceration, interactions with public, social, and political entities of the period, and how they challenged Victorian ideas of race and femininity in Kentucky.
