Elizabeth Abel

Department: English

My research over the past decade has addressed the intersections of gender, race, and psychoanalysis. In my current project, I analyze the representational politics of the Jim Crow signs that traversed the United States for three quarters of a century, and of the documentary movement that produced our cultural memory of these signs. I also track the motivations and pathways of the current industry in reproducing racial signs that have become coveted items both for white supremacists and for African American collectors struggling to preserve segregation’s material history.