Rochelle Rowe

Biography

I am a historian focused on the cultural history of race, gender and the body. I lecture in Black British History at the University of Edinburgh.

Current Project

I am currently researching 'Performative Blackness and Black Histories in Scotland, 1839-1939'. This project examines how blackness was performed by white and black entertainers in Scotland in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, primarily in popular theatre and music hall, and by extension in the circus, human exhibitions, jazz, and local festivities. I also research the lives and labours of Black art models in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and have two publications in the pipelines from this line of research. The first is titled, 'Beauty, Ugliness, and Ideas of Difference Sara Baartman, Fanny Eaton, and Black Women’s Performance of Beauty in the Nineteenth-Century City' and will be published in the Cultural History of Beauty with Bloomsbury Academic. The latter is provisionally titled 'The Negro Type of Beauty': The Black Woman Muse in Jacob Esptein's Art and is currently being prepared as a journal article. Lastly I continue to write about the themes of race, gender and beauty, particularly in relation to Black British print culture.

Research Interests

• Black Histories in Scotland
• Black British Print Culture
• Black art models in Britain and Europe
• Black beauty culture

Publications

Book: Imagining Caribbean Womanhood: race, nation and beauty competitions