Marie Battle Singer was a Black American born during the Jim Crow era in the Deep South who fled the U.S. to build a life in England. She trained as a psychoanalyst with Anna Freud and had a thriving psychotherapy practice in London and Cambridge, where she also became a fellow at Clare Hall and taught in the Psychology department. Despite her significant achievements, the lingering trauma of racial hatred and discrimination shaped every aspect of her personal and professional life. Rhodes and Hudson, authors of a biography-in-progress of Singer, will offer highlights of this remarkable Black expatriate and how she navigated race, gender, and national identity on both sides of the Atlantic.
About the speakers:
Jane Rhodes is Professor and Head of the Department of Black Studies at the University of Illinois, Chicago. She is the author of Mary Ann Shadd Cary: The Black Press and Protest in the NIneteenth Century and Framing the Black Panthers: The Spectacular Rise of a Black Power Icon, now in its second edition. In Easter 2013 Rhodes was a Visiting Fellow at Wolfson College during her fellowship at CRASSH where she conducted research for this project.
Lynn Hudson is an Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of Illinois, Chicago. She is the author of The Making of Mammy Pleasant: A Black Entrepreneur in Nineteenth Century San Francisco, and the recently published West of Jim Crow: The Fight Against California's Color Line. In 2019 Hudson was the Meeker Distinguished fellow at the University of Bristol where she continued research on Singer's history.
This event is part of our Let's Talk about Race and Racism initiative.
