Dr. Jessica Reuther
Historian of Africa, gender and sexuality, and law
Curriculum Vitae
PROFESSIONAL APPOINTMENTS
2017- present
Assistant Professor, Ball State University, Department of History, Muncie, IN
Affiliated teaching faculty: African American Studies Program
Affiliated faculty: Women’s and Gender Studies Program
2016-2017 Visiting Assistant Professor, Ball State University, Department of History, Muncie, IN
EDUCATION
2010-2016
Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia Doctor of Philosophy, Department of History
Dissertation: “Borrowed Children, Entrusted Girls: Legal Encounters with Girlhood in French West Africa, c. 1900-1941”
Committee: Kristin Mann (advisor), Clifton Crais, and Pamela Scully
Exam Fields: African History, France and its Empire, Law and Colonialism in the Atlantic World
2006-2008
University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, Master of Arts, Department of History
Thesis: “The Art of Abolition: Inscribing Legal and Political Borders in 19th Century North Africa”
Specialization: Modern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, Comparative Imperialism
2000-2004
Saint Louis University, St. Louis, Missouri, Bachelor of Arts
Majors in History, International Studies, and French
Summa cum laude
Publications
Book Manuscripts
Fostering Trust: A History of Girlhood and Social Motherhood in West Africa
Rites and Wrongs in Atlantic West Africa: Female Sexualities, Indigenous Cosmologies, and Legal Authorities
Articles (Under Review/ In Progress)
- “Secret Knowledge, the Supernatural, and Slavery in Atlantic Africa” solicited article for the Oxford Encyclopedia of African Slavery, Slave Trade, and the Diaspora. Oxford: Oxford University Press (under review as of August 2022)
Peer-reviewed articles
2022 “Street Hawking or Street Walking in Dahomey?: Debates about Girls’ Sexual Assaults in Colonial Tribunals, 1924-1941.” The Journal of African History (volume 63 issue 3) November 2022 (Forthcoming).
2019 “Women in Benin.” In Oxford Encyclopedia of African Women’s History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019.
2018 “Irresponsible Boys, Promiscuous Girls: Maturity, Gender, and Rape Myths in the Criminal Tribunals of Colonial Dahomey, 1924-1940.” La Revue d’histoire de l’enfance “irrégulière” (numero 20) November 2018, 67-84. https://journals.openedition.org/rhei/4209
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Ball State University
AFAM 200: African American Studies Theory and Research Methods
HIST 441/541: Comparative Slavery
HIST 426/526 Topics in African History: Cultural Histories of West Africa and the Atlantic World
HIST 426/526: Topics in African History: Gender and Sexuality in African History
HIST 426: Topics in African History: Africans and Human Rights in Modern History
HIST 372: Africa since 1500
HIST 198: Studies in Non-Western Civilizations
HIST 150: The West in the World
Emory University (Instructor of Record)
Women, Children, and Human Rights in Modern Africa