Art History
Associate Professor
OFFICE: Art & Communications Bldg Room 244H
PH: 901/678-3450
FAX: 901/678-2735
EMAIL:eljenkns@memphis.edu

EDUCATION

PhD. 1997: History/African/Ethiopian focus/Comparative Black History Program. Michigan State University

MA.  1986: Art History. University of Memphis

BFA. 1979: Spelman College

RESEARCH AND AREAS OF INTEREST

2010  Established graduate concentration in Art history: Arts of Africa and the African Diaspora

Art and visual cultures of Africa and the African Diaspora; African American cinema; art and politics in 19th and 20th century Ethiopia; race, gender, and representation within the context of colonialism and empire; African American photographers and photographic culture; masculinity and representation; history of African Americans in Memphis, Tennessee.

EMPLOYMENT HISTORY

Current:  Associate Professor of Art History. Department of Art, University of   Memphis

Graduate Coordinator: Arts of Africa and the African Diaspora

1999-1998  Curator of Education Institute of Egyptian Art & Archaeology University of Memphis

1998-1997  Post Doctoral Fellowship in Comparative Black History Department of

History Michigan State University

AWARDS / HONORS / FELLOWSHIPS

2012-   Hooks Faculty Advisory Board: University of Memphis

2012-  Board Member: National African American Photographic Archives:  University of Memphis

2004   Benjamin Hooks Fellow Benjamin Hooks institute for Social Change,

University of Memphis

2002-2003  New Faculty Research Grant University of Memphis

1997-1998  Post Doctoral Fellow Michigan State University

1993-1995  King-Chavez -Parks Fellowship Award Michigan State University 

1992-1993  College Fellowship Competition Michigan State University

1990-1991  CIC International Studies Fellow Program Language Grant Institute of

Ethiopian Studies, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

1989-1990  Title IV Foreign Language Area Studies Fellowship Michigan State

University

TEACHING EXPERIENCE / UNIVERSITY OF MEMPHIS

Seminar: African American Photographic Culture

Seminar: African Diaspora Cinema

Seminar: African Art & Museums: Spectacle & Display

Seminar: Readings in Modern and Contemporary African American Art

Seminar: Cultural Contact: the Art of Colonialism and Empire

Seminar: Race & Representation in African American Art

Visual Arts of Africa

African American Art

Social History of American Art

Traditional Arts of Africa, Oceania, and Native North America

Seminar: Black Men in United States History and American Culture. African-African American Studies Program

Seminar: Race & Gender in American Visual Culture

Seminar: Black Memphis Heritage: Archives, Collections, and Material

Culture: African-African American Studies

World Art 2101: Survey/Ancient to Medieval

World Art 2102: Survey/Medieval to Modern

World Art 2103/Indigenous Arts and Visual Cultures

Art 1030: Introduction to Art

PUBLICATIONS (PUBLISHED AND FORTHCOMING)

 “Painting Ira Aldridge as Othello in James Northcote’s 1827 Manchester Portrait,” in Spectacle of Blackness. Ashgate Press, 2012.

“Charles Alston,” Facts on File Encyclopedia, editors Joe Trotter, Stephanie Shaw, Daniel Littlefield, forthcoming 2012

African Americans in Memphis. Charelston: Arcadia Publishing, 2009.

A Kingly Craft: Art and Leadership in Ethiopia: A Social History of Art and Visual Culture in Pre-modern Africa. Lanham: University Press of America, 2008.

"Nubia," Encyclopedia of the African Diaspora: Origins, Experience, Culture. Carole Boyce Davies, editor. Denver: ABC-CLIO, 2008

"Songhay,"  Encyclopedia of Africa and the Americas. Richard M. Juang and Noelle Morrisette, eds. Denver: ABC-CLIO, 2008

"Music and Community: WDIA and Black Radio Culture in Civil Rights Era Memphis. Tennessee Historical Quarterly. (Fall 2006).

"Artist, Alison Saar," in Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia,  2nd edition. Darlene Clark Hine, ed. Oxford University Press, May 2005.

"Artist, Bettye Saar," in Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia,  2nd edition. Darlene Clark Hine, ed. Oxford University Press, may 2005.

Jenkins, Earnestine and Darlene Clark Hine,  eds.  A Question of Manhood: A Reader in U.S. Black Men's History and Masculinity. Vol. 2. Bloomington; Indiana University Press, May 2001.

"African American Boyhood," in Boyhood in America: An Encyclopedia. Priscilla Ferguson Clement and Jaqueline Reinier, eds. Denver: ABC-CLIO, November 2001.

Hine, Darlene Clark and Earnestine Jenkins,  eds. A Question of Manhood: A Reader in U.S. Black Men's History and Masculinity. Vol. 1. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999.

"Francis Kneeland." Reprint in Facts on File Encyclopedia of Black Women in America: Science, Health and Medicine. Vol.6. Darlene Clark Hine and Kathleen Thompson, eds.  Facts on File Inc., 1997.

"Julia Hooks." Reprint in Facts on File Encyclopedia of Black Women in America: The Early Years, 1619-1899. Vol. 1.  Facts on File Inc., 1997.

A Glorious Past: Ancient Egypt, Ethiopia, and Nubia. Milestones in Black American History Series. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1994.

"Four miniatures from 18th-19th Century Sawa:  An African Perspective," in  Aspects of Ethiopian Art. Paul Henze, ed. London: The Jed Press, 1993.

"Francis Kneeland," in Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia. Darlene Clark Hine, ed. Brooklyn, New York: Carlson Publishing, 1993.

"Julia Hooks," in Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia. Darlene Clark Hine, ed. Brooklyn, New York: Carlson Publishing, Inc., 1993.

BOOK REVIEWS

Frederick C. Moffat. The Life, Art, and Times of Joseph Delaney, 1904-1991. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2009. Reviewed for The Journal of Tennessee History (2011)

Nancy Goldstein. Jackie Ormes: the First African American Woman Cartoonist.  Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2008. Reviewed for American Studies Journal, Spring Issue, vol. 50:1, 2010

Jo-Ann Morgan. Uncle Tom's Cabin as Visual Culture. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2007.

Egypt in Africa, Theodore Celenko, editor, African Arts. (Summer 1998).

Transatlantic Slavery: Against Human Dignity, Anthony Tibbles, Editor, in African Arts. Vol. XXIX. No. 1 (Winter 1996).

PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES

Victorian Women of Color and the Family Photo Album: Documenting Race, Gender, and Interracial Relationships in 19th Century Memphis. African Americans and the Civil War, Association for the Study of African American Life and History, Richmond, VA., (October 5-9, 2011).

Invited Lecture. Race & Gender in Joe Jones ‘American Justice:’ Radical Painter of the American Scene. Dixon Gallery of Art, Memphis, TN., (April 14, 2011).

A Fresh Look at African Art. Panel, Art Museum, University of Memphis, (April 24, 2010).

Race & Representation: Depicting 'New Negro' Manhood in Hooks BrothersPhotographs, Memphis, Tennessee.  Modern and Contemporary Art Session,  SECAC, Birmingham, Alabama (October, 2009).

Invited Commentator. Black Masculinity: Post-Reconstruction. Association for the Study of African American Life and History. Cincinnati, Ohio, September 31-October 4, 2009

Invited Commentator. Myth, Memory, and the African American Past. Graduate Student Conference in African American History. University of Memphis, Memphis, TN., September 9-11, 2009

Invited Panelist, Menelik II: Imaging an African Leader in the Era of Colonization, Visionary Leadership: Kings, Art and the Colonial Moment. African Studies Association, Chicago, Illinois (Nov. 13-18, 2008).

Panelist, John Northcote's Portrait Head of a Negro in the Character of Othello, Painting Race in Early Nineteenth Century British Art. 2007 BARS-NASSR Conference (British Association of Romantic Studies and the North American Society for the Study of Romanticism), Emancipation, Liberation, Freedom, University of Bristol, 26-29 July 2007

Invited Panelist, Race and Masculinity in 19th Century European Art. Organization of American Historians, Washington, D.C. (April 2003).

Invited Lecture, Gendering the Male Experience: African American Men and the History of Masculinities. University of Mississippi, Oxford, MS., March 4, 2002.

Paper Presented, Black Women Artists and Representations of Mammy and Aunt Jemima: an Essay in Visual Liberation. Twelfth Triennial Symposium on African Art, St. Thomas (April 2001).

Paper Presented, Selling Knowledge: Ebony Magazine and the Popularization of African American History. Comparative Black History Symposium, (Michigan State University, April 17-18, 1998).

Paper presented, Black Male Identity: Sam Cooke and the Romantic Tradition in Soul Music. Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (October 1995).

Invited Panelist, Imagery and Ideology in Ethiopian Kingship. Tenth Triennial Symposium on African Art, New York City (April 1995).

Invited Panelist. Three Miniatures from 18th-19th Century Sawa: the Influence of Scroll Painting. The 2nd International Conference on the History of Ethiopian Art. Nieborow, Poland (September 1990).

COMMUNITY SERVICE & OUTREACH

Project Consultant, The Arts of Africa. Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis, TN. Reinstallation of the Henry Easterwood and Brooks Museum Collections of African art, 2003-2004.

Consultant: National Civil Rights Museum King Holiday Weekend Program. Program entitled ‘Boys to Men Celebration,’ focusing on the challenges confronting young African American males by discussing the influence of images in the media, Jan. 9, 2004.

“New Ways of Thinking about African Art & Culture.” Invited Lecture, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Nov. 6, 2004.

Consultant: African Art Collection. Rust College, Hollis Springs, MS. Invited to identify some pieces in their recently installed African Art collection, and make suggestions for further documentation, Spring, 2004.

Judge: Annual Student Art/Poster Contest, National Civil Rights Museum. Memphis, TN., 2004, 2003, 2002.

Docent Training: Reinstallation of African galleries, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Oct., 2004.

Black History Lecture, National Civil Rights Museum, Memphis, TN., Feb. 16, 2002.

Archivist: Local Photographic collections. Center for Southern Folklore, Memphis, TN., Summer 2001.

Docent Training: African Art Collection, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis, TN., Fall 2000.

Docent Training: Africa: One Continent, Many Worlds, Pink Palace Museum, Memphis, TN., Fall, 2000.

Docent Training: ’Egypt in Africa’ exhibition, Pink Palace Museum, Memphis, TN., Fall, 1999.

“Christian Art in Ancient Nubia and Ethiopia.” The Nile Egyptian Museum and Gift Shop. Memphis, TN., March 14, 1999.

“Mummies and Movies.” Invited presentation and film discussion, Pink Palace Museum program series for exhibition, ‘Africa’s Egypt,’ Memphis, TN., March 13, 1999.

PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

ACASA/Arts Council of the African Studies Association
College Art Association
Southeastern College Art Conference
African Studies Association
American Studies Association
Organization of American Historicans
The Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History.
Friends of the Hill Monastic Manuscript Library, Saint John's University, Collegeville, Minnesota.