Brenda Gayle Plummer
Position title: Merze Tate Professor of History
Email: bplummer@wisc.edu
Phone: 608.263.1845
Address:
Office: 5111 Mosse Humanities
Mailbox: 4011 Mosse Humanities
Office Hours: Tuesday 11:15am-12:15pm or by appointment
Curriculum Vitae (pdf)
Joint Appointment: African American Studies
Biography
My specializations are African American history, the United States in the 20th century, Caribbean history, and the history of U.S. foreign relations. I am currently working on a study of race and race making in the world of commercial travel.
Professor Plummer is not currently accepting incoming graduate students for academic year 2025-26.
Education
Ph.D., Cornell University
M.A., Columbia University
B.A., Antioch College
Books
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Brenda Gayle Plummer. In Search of Power: African Americans in the Era of Decolonization, 1956–1974. Cambridge University Press, 2012. -
Brenda Gayle Plummer (Editor). Window on Freedom: Race, Civil Rights, and Foreign Affairs, 1945-1988. University of North Carolina Press, 2003. -
Brenda Gayle Plummer. Rising Wind: Black Americans and U.S. Foreign Affairs, 1935-1960. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996. -
Brenda Gayle Plummer. Haiti and the United States: The Psychological Moment. University of Georgia Press, 1992. -
Brenda Gayle Plummer. Haiti and the Great Powers, 1902-1915. Louisiana State University Press, 1988.
Advisor To
Selected Awards
- Evjue Bascom Chair in African American Studies
- Institute for Research in the Humanities Race, Ethnicity, and Indigeneity Fellowship, Spring 2023
- Karen Johnson Teaching Award, History department, 2021
- Association of Marquette University Women (AMUW) Women’s Chair in Humanistic Studies 2017
History Courses
- History 321 – African American History Since 1900 – Syllabus 2021 (pdf)
- History 600 – Race and Nation in American History – Syllabus 2022 (pdf)
- History 600 – Du Bois For Today – Syllabus 2020 (pdf)
- History 628 – History of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States – Syllabus 2021 (pdf)
- History 636 – Afro-American History Since 1900 – Syllabus 2012 (pdf)
- History 943 – Race and Nationalisms: Comparative and Theoretical Perspectives – Syllabus 2021 (pdf)