Cogut Institute for the Humanities

Emily Owens is the David and Michelle Ebersman Assistant Professor of History, where she teaches about histories of race, gender, and sexuality in the U.S. and conducts research on U.S. slavery, the legal history of race and sexual violence, and the intellectual history of American feminisms. Her first book, The Fantasy of Consent: Violence and Survival in Antebellum New Orleans surfaces the survival strategies of women of color whose lives were bound by sexual labor under slavery and is forthcoming from the University of North Carolina Press. Her work has appeared in Louisiana History, Feminist Formations, The Black Scholar, differences, and Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. In addition to her appointment in History, Owens also acts as a faculty fellow at the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice.

While at the Cogut Institute, Owens began work on a new manuscript that situates the figure of the lesbian in the intellectual and cultural history of American feminism.