About
Dr. Nneka D. Dennie is a Black feminist scholar with specializations in nineteenth- and twentieth-century African American history. Her research examines Black intellectual thought with an emphasis on nineteenth-century African American history. Dr. Dennie is an Assistant Professor of History, core faculty in the Africana Studies Program, and affiliate faculty in the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program at Washington and Lee University. She is also a 2024 recipient of the Mellon Emerging Faculty Leaders Award from the Institute of Citizens and Scholars.
Dr. Dennie’s first book, Mary Ann Shadd Cary: Essential Writings of a Nineteenth-Century Black Radical Feminist, is a primary source collection of work by and about Shadd Cary— an abolitionist, suffragist, and one of the first Black women newspaper editors in North America. Dr. Dennie’s monograph, Redefining Radicalism: Black Women Intellectuals in the Nineteenth Century, is a study of early Black radical thought that is under contract with the University of Pennsylvania Press. In 2018, Dr. Dennie co-founded the Black Women’s Studies Association.
Research
19th Century black women's history
20th century black women's history
black Intellectual history
black Feminist thought
black radicalism
black internationalism
“Only the black woman can say ‘when and where I enter, in the quiet, undisputed dignity of my womanhood, without violence and without suing or special patronage, then and there the whole Negro race enters with me.’”