After graduating from Appalachian State University with a bachelor's degree in fine arts, sculpture, and art management, Jennifer worked for five years in various New York museums. Inspired by the academic trajectories of her colleagues, she decided to pursue a PhD in Art History at Columbia University. During one of her first-year courses, she attended a presentation by Maboula Soumahoro, a French academic and 2023 – 2024 Fellow at the Institute for Ideas and Imagination. Soumahoro, along with Professor Kaiama L. Glover, was co-teaching a course in Paris that summer, which Jennifer felt compelled to attend.
The course, “Blackness in French: From Harlem to Paris and Beyond,” allowed Jennifer to interact with people from diverse specializations. She encourages future students to ensure that their coursework is enriched by their time in Paris, emphasizing the importance of being experimental and interdisciplinary. Her courses and attendance at Reid Hall public events enabled her to engage directly with black French artists, scholars, curators, and activists.
A public lecture by the curator of the Manet/Degas exhibition at the Musée d’Orsay profoundly impacted Jennifer, changing her experience of the artwork. She actively followed up with individuals she met at Reid Hall, learning more about the contemporary art scene and finding them very generous with their time. She cherished an optional excursion to the Musée d’Orsay when it was closed, saying it “just spoiled me.” She also enjoyed exploring Paris, describing it as “such a beautiful city to walk in and to get lost in.”
One of Jennifer’s primary interests in Art History is exploring the connections between black artists and the natural world. She challenges the assumption of neutrality in landscapes. In a class project on the Colonial Exhibition of 1907, she examined a public green space in Paris that was initially a colonial seed garden. She noted that while this research could be conducted in New York, being in Paris allowed her to walk through these gardens, photograph the space, and discover the city's incredible collections of botanical drawings.
Through an accelerated French course at the Alliance Française, Jennifer realized a lifelong goal of learning French. This newfound language skill enabled her to engage more deeply with artists and communities, opening up new ways of thinking and allowing her to examine the “cultural translations” that occur around discussions of race in French. This experience complemented her professional background in New York museums, where she had taught in galleries, worked with community organizations, and managed permanent collections.
Jennifer found the Black France on Film public event series at Reid Hall particularly impactful. She appreciated that the events were open to the public, bringing together a diverse audience of American students and French community members to discuss blackness in France. The audience enriched the experience of viewing the films and the Q&A sessions afterwards. She emphasized the importance of Reid Hall opening its space and resources beyond just the Columbia network, recounting conversations with former French students who said, “we could never take a class like this in our university in Paris.”
In line with Professor Glover’s concept of “afro-fluency,” Jennifer describes witnessing the interdisciplinary movement of diaspora studies throughout her summer experience. She believes that even if her dissertation remains specific to the Americas, her time in Paris will still “directly inform the work that I will do.”
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