Nancy Jacobs, '84

As a Calvin student in the 1980s, I once imagined a career that was more activist than academic, but I loved research and became a historian. At Calvin I oriented myself toward Europe; I majored in German, spent a year in Hamburg, and completed the European track for the history major. But Calvin’s emphasis on the Christian imperative of working for social justice led me toward African Studies. I earned an M.A. from UCLA and a Ph.D. in African history from Indiana University in 1995 and have spent my career at Brown University.

As a historian, I have directed the concern for social justice that I absorbed at Calvin into the study of social history, enhanced by a consideration of environmental forces. I’ve specialized in colonial history and more-than-human history. I try to tell the stories of remote places and small things that may not even seem to have a history, but have been subject to the alienating effects of colonialism and capitalism. My work tells histories of a broken world, and I try to advocate for redemptive politics in the present.