Barbara J. Fields | |
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![]() Fields in 2013 | |
Born | Barbara Jeanne Fields 1947 (age 77–78) |
Awards | John H. Dunning Prize (1986) Lincoln Prize (1994) |
Academic background | |
Alma mater | Harvard University (BA) Yale University (PhD) |
Academic work | |
Institutions | Columbia University Northwestern University University of Michigan University of Mississippi |
Barbara Jeanne Fields (born 1947) is an American historian. She is a professor of history at Columbia University. Her focus is on history of the Southern United States and 19th century social history. [1]
Barbara Fields was born in Charleston,South Carolina,in 1947, [2] and was raised in Washington,D.C.,where she attended Morgan Elementary School,Banneker Junior High School,and Western High School. [3] She received her B.A. from Harvard University in 1968,and her Ph.D. from Yale University in 1978. [1] At Yale,she was a doctoral student of historian C. Vann Woodward. [4]
Fields was the first African-American woman to earn academic tenure at Columbia University. She has also taught at Northwestern University,the University of Michigan,and the University of Mississippi.
She is widely known for her 1990 essay,"Slavery,Race and Ideology in the United States of America". [5]
She co-authored the 2012 book Racecraft:The Soul of Inequality in American Life with her sister Karen Fields,a sociologist. [6] [7] [8] [9] The book argues that race is a product of racism,that racism is an ideology and a way of misunderstanding social reality,and that racecraft in American society serves to obfuscate the actual dynamics of inequality. [8]
Fields appears in Ken Burns' documentary series The Civil War and The Congress. [10] [9]
Fields was critical of The New York Times' 1619 Project for ignoring indentured servitude in Virginia in 1607 and failing to understand the economics behind slavery. [11]
Bard College awarded Fields an honorary doctorate in May 2007. Thavolia Glymph named Fields as one of the nation's greatest historians. [12]