Jenifer Barclay

Jenifer Barclay is an Associate Professor in the Department of History and Associate Director of the Center for Disability Studies at the University at Buffalo. Her work focuses on African American history, disability history, and the intersections of race, gender, and medicine in 19th-century America. She holds a PhD from Michigan State University (2011).

Her research explores how disability shaped racial and gendered discourses in slavery and post-emancipation contexts. Her first book, *The Mark of Slavery: Disability, Race, and Gender in Antebellum America* (2021), examines disability as both a lived experience and a metaphor used to reinforce racial hierarchies. Current projects include co-editing *Cripping the Archive: Disability, History, and Power* (2024) and a monograph on disability and segregation in southern education systems.

Barclay teaches courses such as U.S. Disability History, African American History, and graduate seminars on race and education. Awards include a Postdoctoral Fellowship in African American Studies (Case Western Reserve University) and multiple graduate fellowships. She actively challenges archival erasure of disability narratives through interdisciplinary collaboration.

Her work bridges historical scholarship with disability justice, emphasizing the role of African American women in building inclusive educational systems and the transnational contributions of figures like deaf educator Andrew Foster. Ongoing research highlights doubly segregated institutions like Louisiana School for the Blind and Deaf, which remained segregated until 1978.