Jody Benjamin

Jody Benjamin is an Associate Professor in the Department of History at Howard University's College of Arts and Sciences, specializing in the social and cultural history of western Africa between 1650 and 1850. His research centers African perspectives while transcending colonial archival limitations.

His educational background includes a PhD in African Studies and History from Harvard University (2016).

Professor Benjamin's work examines the intersections of material culture, technology, labor, gender, and race to reframe western Africa's role in global capitalism and contemporary inequality. Through innovative methodologies, he explores how textiles and dress reflected state formation and social dynamics in Mali, Senegal, and Guinea during periods of slavery and colonialism, connecting these to broader African diaspora and global historical narratives.

His 2024 monograph The Texture of Change represents significant scholarly contribution to understanding self-fashioning in pre-colonial and colonial western Africa.

Dr. Benjamin has secured major research funding including:

• National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) support
• University of California Regents fellowship
• UCHRI research initiative funding
• Hellman Fellows Fund award
• John Carter Brown Library fellowship
• Mellon Sawyer Seminar grant for 'Unarchiving Blackness' (2022-2023)

As an active researcher and educator, he previously taught at the University of California, Riverside before joining Howard University, where he continues to advance scholarship on African historical agency and archival practices.