Biography

Tammy L. Brown teaches African diaspora studies and 20th-century American history. She earned her B.A. in international history, magna cum laude, from Harvard University and her Ph.D. in American history and African diaspora studies from Princeton University. Tammy’s teaching, writing, and service to her community are connected through her interest in art, social justice, and biography as a methodological approach.

In her first book, City of Islands: Caribbean Intellectuals in New York (University Press of Mississippi, 2015), Dr. Brown uses the life stories of Caribbean intellectuals as “windows” into the dynamic history of immigration to New York and the long battle for racial equality in modern America. Her current book project is a biography of rock & roll virtuoso Jimi Hendrix centering on the spiritual dimensions of his music. 

Tammy's research on race, feminism, art, and politics has been featured in various media outlets including TEDx, the American Civil Liberty Union's blog, NPR, and Vox.com. Dr. Brown’s selected awards include the Heanon Wilkins Faculty Fellowship and the Lavatus Powell Outstanding Faculty Diversity Award at Miami University, National Endowment for the Humanities’ Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant, and a research grant from the Gilder Lehrman Institute.