A scholar specializing in African American, African diaspora and African history, Nemata Blyden is the author of African Americans and Africa: A New History (Yale University Press, 2019), and West Indians in West Africa, 1808-1880: The Diaspora in Reverse (University of Rochester Press, 2000), among other publications.  Her teaching and scholarship center the experiences of African descended people, thinking about this history in insightful ways by looking at their history through an often-neglected lens of “Global Black” history.  Her principal thematic interests have included nineteenth-century African American history, African American engagement with Africa and African and American and Caribbean migrations to Africa.

Her current project reflects her continuing interest in African American history and the connection between the African continent and its diaspora. A family biography of a black Atlantic family, the project attempts to tell the history of various spaces in the Atlantic world through the eyes of an extended family.

Blyden holds a Master of Philosophy degree and a Ph.D. in history from Yale University and a bachelor’s degree in history and international relations from Mount Holyoke College. Formerly a professor at George Washington University, Blyden joins the faculty of the Carter G. Woodson Institute for African-American and African Studies and will teach a variety of courses on the Black experience.