Jacob Dorman

Dorman is a tenured Associate Professor at the University of Kansas jointly appointed in the departments of History and American Studies and holds a courtesy appointment in the Department of African and African American Studies. He received his Ph.D. in U.S. History with an emphasis on African American history from UCLA in 2004, under the direction of Brenda Stevenson. He is the recipient of a Charles A. Ryskamp Research Fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies, and has held a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship at the Newberry Library, the Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Wesleyan University Center for the Humanities, and research fellowships from Yale, Columbia, Duke, Wisconsin, the University of Texas, Harvard University’s Du Bois Institute, and the Hall Center for the Humanities of the University of Kansas.

Dorman is the author of: Chosen People: The Rise of American Black Israelite Religions, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), which won the Wesley-Logan Award for African diaspora history from the American Historical Association; the Albert J. Raboteau Prize in Africana religions, and the Byron Caldwell Smith Award; it was also named a CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title for 2013. The book explores those faiths collectively defined by their belief that contemporary African-Americans are the descendants of ancient Black Israelites. The book maps a journey from Black interactions with white Jews during slavery to the emergence of Black Israelite beliefs in the Holinesss Christianity movement of the 1890s and the key role of Israelite beliefs in the emergence of Pentecostalism in 1906. A second wave of Black Israelite synagogues arose during the Great Migration of African Americans and West Indians to the north during and after World War I, and inspired both Judaic Black Israelite faiths and Jamaican Rastafarianism. The book argues that the formation of new religious cultures can best be described as forms of polycultural bricolage, rather than syncretism. The American Historical Association prize committee called it "a must-read for scholars of the African diaspora, religious studies, and cultural production." Others have called it "a masterful (even paradigm-shifting) book...a genuine tour de force."

Dorman has delivered portions of his second manuscript, “Black Orientalism: Circus, Magic, and the Making of Black Muslims” at the American Historical Association and at the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, and published three articles from the forthcoming book. His intellectual and teaching interests include race, U.S. popular culture, religious history, the Harlem Renaissance, African American history, and whiteness studies.
Phone: Twitter: AT JakeDPhD FB: jake.dorman
Address: Department of History
The University of Kansas
3650 Wescoe Hall
1445 Jayhawk Blvd.
Lawrence, KS