Biography
I am interested in major public and academic discourses that animate the sprawling but interconnected fields of African history. I seek to interrogate these discourses by researching the expanding field of Atlantic history with a geographic and temporal focus on coastal West Africa and emergent African-American communities in the early-modern era. My current research focuses on client-patron and co-residency networks in West African and enslaved Coromantee communities in the 18th century and the distinct socio-spatial and socio-political landscapes they created, fostering new categories of belonging and turbulent change. I then used these networks to analyze broader academic discourses on ethnogenesis, creolization, and cultural syncretism in the early modern Atlantic world.
Education
B.A. History, University of Texas at Austin, 2025
Field
- African History
Selected Publications
- Keiser, Jacob. “West African Compounds in 18th-Century Colonial Jamaica.” Not Even Past, February 11, 2025. https://notevenpast.org/west-african-compounds-in-18th-century-colonial-jamaica/#_ftnref1.
Selected Awards
- John Ferguson-Claudio Segre Honors Thesis Prize for Excellence in the Study of History, Ut-Austin, 2025
- Ben Lindfors Award, Annual Africa Conference, UT-Austin, 2024