Marley Lix-Jones is an Advisory Council Dissertation Fellow at the McNeil Center and a Ph.D. Candidate at Harvard University. Her dissertation, "Disturbed Districts: Contests over Community and Land During Slave Rebellions in the Greater Caribbean," uses the archive of slave rebellions to examine the intimate values and social connections of enslaved people across the Caribbean and Lower South. Find out more in Marley's Fellow Profile.
Q: What drew you to the study of early America?
Lix-Jones: I took an advanced seminar course on Atlantic history as an undergraduate. I found the idea of doing historical work unbounded by international borders quite exciting. I was also excited to learn about the kind of mobility of people and ideas that is central to the history of early America.
Q: How did you become interested in your dissertation topic?
Lix-Jones: I was brought to my research topic through an interest in understanding what people of color thought of slave rebellions and how they reacted to them. As an undergraduate, I researched how elite free people of color responded to the Baptist War in Jamaica. Through my graduate training, my project has evolved to ask the question: what can archives of rebellion tell us about the intimate lives of enslaved people? I think, fundamentally, I was drawn to this topic, as many are, in the hopes of better understanding the lives of my ancestors.
Q: Who are the three scholars who most influenced your own work?
Lix-Jones: Gregory O’Malley first introduced me to Atlantic history while I was an undergraduate at UC Santa Cruz. Without his mentorship, I do not think I would be pursuing a career in the field of history nor would I have such a deep interest in early American history. In terms of scholarship, I have been greatly influenced by John Blassingame’s The Slave Community (1972) and the forcefulness in which he advocates for examining the humanity of enslaved people and Stephanie Camp’s Closer to Freedom (2004), which examines enslaved women’s everyday forms of resistance and their roles as social placemakers.
Q: What is something you’ve read or watched recently that other early Americanists might find interesting?
Lix-Jones: I have been reading novels about slavery and slave rebellions recently in order to think of how writers outside of the field theorize the histories I study. I probably should be reading things simply for fun that are not related to my work. But alas. I found Marlon James’s The Book of Night Women very thought- provoking.
Q: What is the primary source you’ve most enjoyed using in your research?
Lix-Jones: I have been reading a diary of a missionary recently. Every once in a while it offers strikingly detailed depictions of the intimate lives of enslaved people. I am finding it a great antidote to the sources that were created to describe and/or justify violence against enslaved people, which are the bulk of what was produced following slave rebellions.
Q: What are you most enjoying about your Fellowship at the McNeil Center?
Lix-Jones: I am enjoying getting to know the other fellows and the staff at the center. It is rare, as a graduate student, to have a fixed workplace. I feel like it breeds a sense of mutual support. I can walk down the hallway and ask folks what they think about a particular source or something like that. I get to learn from lots of people whose work is different from mine. It is also lovely to be enmeshed in a broader community of early Americanists – those who present at the McNeil Center and those who attend and offer their insights. I also have appreciated how much reading and workshopping we’ve been doing. Getting into the practice of reading other people’s work feels great after being abroad doing research for a year.
Q: What are some of the highlights of your time spent in Philadelphia as a McNeil Center fellow?
Lix-Jones: Philadelphia is a lovely city. I have been enjoying wandering around the city and eating a lot of Ethiopian food. I had a huge chicken parmesan recently, which is really not something you can get in California where I grew up.
Marley Lix-Jones is an Advisory Council Dissertation Fellow and a Ph.D. Candidate at Harvard University. Read more about her dissertation on her bio page.