Jessica Marie Johnson

Jessica Marie Johnson
Johnson in 2021
Other namesKismet Nuñez
Academic background
Alma materUniversity of Maryland, College Park
Doctoral advisorIra Berlin
Academic work
DisciplineHistory, Black studies
Sub-disciplineAtlantic slave trade, Black feminism
InstitutionsJohns Hopkins University
Websitejessicamariejohnson.com

Jessica Marie Johnson is an American historian and Black studies scholar specializing in the history of the Atlantic slave trade. She is an associate professor in the department of history at the Johns Hopkins University Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences. In 2020, Johnson published a Black feminist history of the founding of New Orleans titled Wicked Flesh: Black Women, Intimacy, and Freedom in the Atlantic World.

Life

Johnson completed a Ph.D. at the University of Maryland, College Park. Her 2012 dissertation was titled Freedom, kinship, and property: free women of African descent in the French Atlantic, 1685–1810. Her doctoral advisor was Ira Berlin. She is a Black studies scholar and a historian of the Atlantic slave trade.

Johnson began radical black feminist blogging under the pseudonym Kismet Nuñez. In 2020, Johnson authored a Black feminist history of the founding of New Orleans, titled Wicked Flesh: Black Women, Intimacy, and Freedom in the Atlantic World. It received an honorable mention for the Frederick Jackson Turner Award.

Johnson is an associate professor in the department of history at the Johns Hopkins University Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences.

Selected works

Books

  • Johnson, Jessica Marie (2020). Wicked Flesh: Black Women, Intimacy, and Freedom in the Atlantic World. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0-8122-5238-5.

Journal articles