Deborah Thomas

Deborah A. Thomas is the R. Jean Brownlee Professor of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, with secondary appointments in Gender/Sexuality/Women's Studies, Africana Studies, and Education. Her research examines sovereignty, violence, and post-plantation societies in the Caribbean, particularly Jamaica. She co-directed the films BAD FRIDAY: Rastafari After Coral Gardens (2011) and FOUR DAYS IN MAY (2010) documenting state violence, and curated the multimedia installation Bearing Witness: Four Days in West Kingston (2017-2020).

Her publications include:

• Political Life in the Wake of the Plantation (2019)
• Exceptional Violence (2011)
• Modern Blackness (2004)

Current projects include a book Inheritance: A Speculative Ethnography of Evidence exploring embodied decolonization and a film on the Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church in Jamaica.

Awards include Guggenheim Fellowship and election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.