Dr Rochelle Rowe (PhD, F.R.Hist.S, SFHEA)

Lecturer in Black British History; Director of Centre for Modern and Contemporary History

Biography

Background

I lecture in Black British History here at the University of Edinburgh, including histories of the Black Atlantic world and Black Histories in Britain.  I consider myself a cultural historian whose work focuses on race, gender, and the body. My first book, Imagining Caribbean Womanhood, tells a feminist history of Black beauty spanning the Caribbean, Harlem and postwar London and is published in paperback by Manchester University Press.

I obtained my PhD from the University of Essex in 2010 and my career in higher education includes teaching history and leading programmes of learning for researchers at Essex, Exeter and UCL where I also contributed work on anti-racism, including the first fully-funded doctoral scholarship ring-fenced for Black and Asian doctoral researchers.

I joined Edinburgh in September 2021, and teach courses on the histories of Black Feminist Thought, Black Activism in Britain since 1800, Carnival in the Atlantic World; Representations of Blackness in Britain and Europe

My new research explores Performative Blackness and Black Histories in Scotland in partnership with Scottish libraries and archives. 

Responsibilities & affiliations

  • Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
  • Fellow of the Royal Historical Society

Undergraduate teaching

  • Understanding Race and Colonialism
  • Carnival in the Atlantic World: politics, play and power
  • Representations of Blackness in Britain and Europe: 1800-1950 (4th year special subject) 
  • Historical Skills and Methods 1 & 2 (Black History in Britain; Oral History for Black History)
  • Historian's Toolkit

Postgraduate teaching

  • Black Activism in Britain since 1800
  • Black Feminist Approaches to History (Historical Methodologies)
  • Reading Visual Sources (Historical Skills and Sources)

Open to PhD supervision enquiries?

Yes

Areas of interest for supervision

I am accepting research students in the following and related areas: 

  • Black Atlantic Histories 
  • Histories of Beauty, Beauty Culture and Consumption
  • Black Feminisms 
  • Black Histories in Britain
  • Modern Caribbean History 
  • Black People in the Art of Europe and the Americas

Current PhD students supervised

I am on the supervisory team of the Imperial Flight doctoral research project, a partnership with National Museums Scotland. 

I am co-supervisor of a new doctoral project exploring the experiences of Black Americans and advertising in twentieth century US. 

Research summary

Research interests

I am a cultural historian whose work focuses on race, gender, and the body.

Current research interests

I am currently researching 'Performative Blackness and Black Histories in Scotland, 1830-1939'. This project examines how blackness was performed by white and black entertainers in Scotland in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, primarily in popular theatre and music hall, and by extension in the circus, human exhibitions, jazz, and local festivities.

Past research interests

My first book, Imagining Caribbean Womanhood tells a transnational feminist history of black beauty spanning the British Caribbean, Harlem and postwar London and is published by Manchester University Press (2013). 

Knowledge exchange

'The Negro Type of Beauty': The Black Woman Muse in Jacob Esptein's Art, Britain and the World Conference (2023)

Panel Chair at Caribbean Crucible: Atlantic Migrations and the Making of the Modern World, Columbia University (2023).

'Buy Black: A Conversation on Black Feminism and Popular Culture', (2022)

'Beauty, Ugliness & Ideas of Difference' at the James Weldon Johnson Institute at Emory University for their Race & Difference Colloquium Series (2021) & Women's History Network (2021)

​https://youtu.be/mLoewkvf5tw

Podcasts

(2021) British Library's Unfinished Business podcast, part of their exhibition Unfinished Business: the Fight for Women's Rights where I was interviewed by Ade Hassan, founder of Nubian Skin. 

​Listen to Unfinished Business: Pants, Pageants & Protests

​I've also been interviewed by Viv Groskop for her How to Own the Room podcast, which asks women from all walks of life about how they mastered public speaking. 

Listen to 'How to Own the Room'

Most recently I appeared on Leyla Okhai's award-winning podcast Diverse Minds to talk all things beauty politics and self-care. 

​Listen to Black Beauty & Wholeness on Diverse Minds

I am on the steering committee at the University of Edinburgh's Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH) three-year Institute Project on Decoloniality. 

Affiliated research centres

Project activity

I am currently researching 'Performative Blackness and Black Histories in Scotland, 1830-1939'. 

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