Jacqueline Goldsby

Jacqueline Goldsby is the Thomas E. Donnelly Professor of Black Studies and English at Yale University, with a secondary appointment in American Studies. She joined Yale's faculty in 2011 and served as Chair of the Black Studies Department from 2014-2022.

• Ph.D., Yale University, 1998
• A.B., University of California at Berkeley, 1984

Her research focuses on African American and American literature, particularly examining how literary works document un-archived histories of Jim Crow segregation (1865-1965). She employs interdisciplinary approaches combining formal close reading with material and cultural histories of Black-authored books.

Key projects include the Mapping the Stacks initiative (2005-10) and the ongoing Black Bibliography Project (co-directed with Meredith McGill since 2017), which systematically documents Black print culture through digital bibliography.

Scientific awards:

• William S. Scarborough Prize, Modern Language Association (2007)
• Finalist, Lora Romero First Book Prize, American Studies Association (2007)

Her teaching spans 20th-century African American literature, book history, and Afro-Modernisms. She has edited critical editions including James Weldon Johnson's The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man and contributed to key reference works like the Cambridge Companion to James Baldwin.