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

Biography

Background

I am a historian focused on the cultural history of race, gender and the body. I lecture in Black British History at the University of Edinburgh.  

My first book Imagining Caribbean Womanhood: race, nation and beauty competitions 1929-1970, is a Black Feminist history of beauty and culture spanning the Caribbean, Harlem and London, published in paperback by Manchester University Press.

I have researched into the lives and labours of Black art models in nineteenth and twentieth century Britain with two publications with Bloomsbury and the Women's History Review currently in press (see Research page), and formulations of race, gender and identity in the Black British Press (new book chapter coming soon, see Research page). My new research is an AHRC-funded three-year Early Career Catalyst project exploring Performative Blackness and Black Histories in Scotland in partnership with major Scottish heritage institutions and archives. 

I focus my teaching on Black Atlantic Histories, including dedicated courses on Carnival in the Atlantic World, Representations of Blackness in Britain and Europe, Black Activism in Britain since 1800 and Black Feminist Thought. 

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

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, 1839-1939' in partnership with leading Scottish cultural and heritage institutions. 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. I also research the lives and labours of Black art models in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and have two publications in the pipelines from this line of research. The first is titled, 'Beauty, Ugliness, and Ideas of Difference Sara Baartman, Fanny Eaton, and Black Women’s Performance of Beauty in the Nineteenth-Century City' and will be published in the Cultural History of Beauty with Bloomsbury Academic. The second titled 'The Negro Type of Beauty': Black Modernist Muses in Jacob Epstein's Art' is in press with the Women's History Review. I also write about themes of race, gender and beauty in Black British print culture. A chapter on the politics of beauty in the Black British press is in press with Routledge as part of a reader in Gender in the Caribbean.

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

Podcast to accompany first major exhibition of Sisters! by Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh - March 2025 

'Carnival in the Atlantic World' - Royal Academy of Arts, March 2025

'Teaching Slavery in Scotland' workshop - career professional development for school teachers in Scotland - University of Sterling, January 2025

'Black Modernist Muses in Interwar London' - James McCune Smith Annual Lecture - University of Glasgow, November 2024

'Black Modernist Muses in Interwar London' - Public Lecture in association with the Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights and the City Art Centre (Edinburgh), Black History Month (October) 2024.

'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

(2024) Free Thinking Free Thinking - New Thinking : Muses and women's creativity - New Thinking : Muses and women's creativity - BBC Sounds

(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, 1839-1939'. 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.

I also research the lives and labours of Black art models in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and have two publications in the pipelines from this line of research. The first is titled, 'Beauty, Ugliness, and Ideas of Difference Sara Baartman, Fanny Eaton, and Black Women’s Performance of Beauty in the Nineteenth-Century City' and will be published in the Cultural History of Beauty with Bloomsbury Academic. The latter is provisionally titled 'The Negro Type of Beauty': The Black Woman Muse in Jacob Esptein's Art and is currently being prepared as a journal article.

Lastly I continue to write about the themes of race, gender and beauty in the Caribbean and its diaspora. News of a new publication in this area coming soon.

Current project grants

Performative Blackness and Black Histories in Scotland - Arts and Humanities Research Council - Early Career Catalyst Grant

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