Françoise Hamlin
'04 PhD African American and American Studies // Associate Professor Africana Studies, Brown University
Françoise Hamlin is the Royce Family Associate Professor of Teaching Excellence in Africana Studies and History at Brown University. She earned her doctorate in African American Studies and American Studies at Yale University (‘04 joint African American Studies & American Studies). Hamlin is the author of Crossroads at Clarksdale: The Black Freedom Struggle in the Mississippi Delta after World War II (University of North Carolina Press, 2012), winner of the 2012 Berkshire Conference of Women Historians Book Prize and the 2013 Lillian Smith Book Award. These Truly Are The Brave: An Anthology of African American Writings on Citizenship and War is a co-edited anthology published by the University of Florida Press in 2015. It was a finalist for the QBR 2016 Wheatley Book Award in Nonfiction, and was republished in paperback in 2018. In 2023 with the University Press of Mississippi she republished the previously self-published 1975 autobiography of Mississippi civil rights activist, Vera Pigee, The Struggle of Struggles, and added a full introduction, annotation, and a timeline. This book was named one of the top five books about women in the civil rights movement in the Wall Street Journal in January 2024. From Rights To Lives: The Evolution of the Black Freedom Struggle, is a co-edited volume published by Vanderbilt University Press (March 2024). Winner of numerous research awards and fellowships, most recently she was named an Andrew Carnegie Foundation Fellow in 2021.
As the beneficiary of from excellent mentoring and advising at Yale, she vowed to pay it forward, and as a result Dr. Hamlin has won major mentoring and teaching awards at Brown University. In addition, Dr. Hamlin has done a lot of service to diversify Brown and the profession. Co-founder and former co-director of Faculty of Color Network at Brown, she created a space for social and professionalization events and opportunities, and she also serves as the Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Africana Studies. Similarly, beyond Brown, she recently served as the chair of the Organization of American Historians, Committee on the Status of ALANA Historians and ALANA Histories. In addition, she is a founding Executive Committee Member of the Society of Black Military Studies where she serves as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Black Military Studies which will be launched in September. Listen to her interview today to learn about her advice for current graduate students who are looking inspiration.