The American Antiquarian Society is very pleased to announce that P. Gabrielle Foreman, the Paterno Family Professor of American Literature and professor of African American studies and history at The Pennsylvania State University, will be joining the AAS community for twelve months as the Mellon Distinguished Scholar in Residence beginning in January 2022. She’s also the Watson Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Humanities at Syracuse University for calendar year 2021.

An award-winning teacher, scholar, mentor, and creator of community partnerships, Dr. Foreman has published extensively on issues of race, reform, and resistance in the nineteenth century with a focus on the continuing hold of the past on issues we face today. She is the author or editor of four books, including Activist Sentiments: Reading Black Women in the Nineteenth Century, and, most recently, The Colored Conventions Movement: Black Organizing in the Nineteenth Century.   

Gabrielle Foreman is known for her collaborative and interdisciplinary scholarship and institution building. At University of Delaware, she was the founding faculty director of the Colored Conventions Project, a digital archive and research collective that is now a flagship project of the Center for Black Digital Research/#DigBlk at Penn State University. The CCP has been featured in the New York Times and awarded prizes by the American Studies Association, the Modern Language Association, and the American Culture/Popular Culture Association. It was chosen as an NEH Essential: Great Projects Past and Present.

During her year at AAS, Professor Foreman will work on a project titled “Founding Families of the Convention Movement: The Long History of Black Organizing for Civil Rights.” The AAS community is delighted to welcome P. Gabrielle Foreman to Worcester and looks forward to her participation in and mentorship of the community of scholars at AAS.