Rebecca J. Scott

Professor Rebecca J. Scott is the Charles Gibson Distinguished University Professor of History and Professor of Law at the University of Michigan. She is a graduate of Radcliffe Institute, where she studied International Relations, London School of Economics, where she received her M.Phil. in economic history, and Princeton University, where she received her Ph.D. in history. Professor Scott is a co-founder (1987) of the Postemancipation Societies Project, a collaborative research and teaching project that links faculty and students at the Universities of Michigan, Chicago, and Maryland. Her research and writing focuses on analyzing slavery, emancipation, and struggles for equal rights, both in Latin America and in the United States, which can be observed in her books, most notably Freedom Papers: An Atlantic Odyssey in the Age of Emancipation. The story traces one family across five generations and three continents, into slavery and then back to freedom, exploring some of the forces that shaped the lives of people of color during the nineteenth century, and the ways in which individuals confronted those forces. It received the Albert Beveridge Book Award, James Rawley Book Prize, and Chinard Prize.