Jennifer C. Nash, Jean Fox O'Barr Women's Studies Distinguished Professor

Jennifer C. Nash is the Jean Fox O'Barr Professor of Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies at Duke University.  She is currently the Margaret Taylor Smith Director of Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies, as well as the Director of the Black Feminist Theory Summer Institute.

She earned her PhD in African American Studies at Harvard University and her JD at Harvard Law School.  Her research interests include black feminist theory; race, gender, and law; intersectionality; black maternal health; and visual culture.

She is the author of four books (all published on Duke University Press):

• The Black Body in Ecstasy: Reading Race, Reading Pornography (awarded the Alan Bray Memorial Book Prize by the GL/Q Caucus of the Modern Language Association)
• Black Feminism Reimagined: After Intersectionality (awarded the Gloria Anzaldúa Book Prize by the National Women's Studies Association)
• Birthing Black Mothers (awarded an Honorable Mention for the Gloria Anzaldúa Book Prize by the National Women's Studies Association).
• How We Write Now: Living with Black Feminist Theory

She is also the editor of Gender: Love (Macmillan, 2016), and a co-editor (with Samantha Pinto) of The Routledge Companion to Intersectionalities (Routledge, 2023).  She co-edits (with Samantha Pinto) the Black Feminism on the Edge book series on Duke University Press. She is the Editorial Director of Feminist Studies.

She has published articles in scholarly journals including Signs, Feminist Studies, Feminist Theory, Social Text, Theory and Event, differences, Frontiers, American Quarterly, and diacritics, and in venues including The Cut, Ms., Boston Review, and Lit Hub.   

Contact Info:

Office Location:
Email Address:

Teaching (Spring 2026):

• GSF 196S.01, GENDER, MEDIA, AND SPORTS Synopsis

  Class Bldg 135, W 11:45 AM-02:15 PM

  (also cross-listed as CULANTH 197S.01, DOCST 196S.01, SOCIOL 187S.01, VMS 196S.01)

Education:

Ph.D.

Harvard University

2009

Recent Publications   (More Publications)

1. Nash, JC, :Lethal Intersections: Race, Gender, and Violence, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, vol. 50 no. 3 (March, 2025), pp. 797-799, University of Chicago Press [doi]
2. Nash, JC; Pinto, S, On Exhaustion: Toward a Post-Care Feminism, Differences, vol. 36 no. 1 (January, 2025), pp. 87-114 [doi]
3. Nash, JC, Black Feminist Self-Help: Or, Notes on the Genres of Contemporary Black Feminist Political Life, Signs, vol. 49 no. 3 (March, 2024), pp. 557-578 [doi]  [abs]
4. Nash, JC, INTERSECTIONAL ICONOGRAPHY: Promise, Peril, Possibility, in Routledge International Handbook of Intersectionality Studies (January, 2024), pp. 199-208, ISBN 9780367545048 [doi]
5. Nash, JC, How We Write Now Living with Black Feminist Theory (2024), Duke University Press, ISBN 9781478059509  [abs]