Kéla Jackson
Assistant Professor, Art History
Art and Communication Building
901.678.2216
artanddesign@memphis.edu
Biography
Dr. Kéla Jackson is a scholar of art and visual culture in the United States and the
Black diaspora. Her research and teaching engage the histories and theories of modern
and contemporary art and visual culture with an emphasis on articulations of race,
gender, and citizenship. She is currently completing her manuscript, UnBecoming: The
Poetics of Rupture in Visions of Black Girlhood which examines twentieth and twenty
first century American art and visual culture, specifically the work of artists Faith
Ringgold, Deborah Roberts, and Clarissa Sligh, to reveal how discourses on race, gender,
and vision shape perceptions of Black girls and their civic sovereignty.
In addition to her manuscript writing, Dr. Jackson has published in Boston Art Review,
Panorama Journal of American Art, as well as various exhibition catalogs, including
Latoya Hobbs: It’s Time, Robert Peterson: Somewhere in America, and The Sculpture
of William Edmondson: Tombstones, Garden Ornaments, and Stonework. In addition to
research and teaching, she co-organized the 2021 conference, Art Museums and the Legacies
of the Dutch Slave Trade: Curating Histories, Envisioning Futures, which was published
as an edited volume through Brill in 2024.
Her research has been generously supported by the Henry Luce Foundation/American Council
of Learned Societies, Terra Foundation for American Art, and Smithsonian Institutions,
among others. She received her Ph.D. in the History of Art and Architecture from Harvard
University in 2026 and her B.A. in Art with a concentration in art history from Spelman
College in 2019.
Education
REBECCA M. HOWARD (2020), Associate Professor: B.A., 2008, Christopher Newport University; M.A., 2011, Ph.D., 2017, The Ohio State University