Jennifer Bess is an Associate Professor of Academic Program at Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland. She completed her doctorate, with a specialization in Early Modern English literature, in 1995 at the Catholic University of America. After graduating, she began teaching in Goucher’s composition program and served as the community-based learning coordinator from 2001-2011. During that time, she also began teaching in the Peace program. In courses that are broadly humanistic and include history and literature, she addresses issues of power and resistance to hegemony.
My current research involves Native American border-crossings before, during, and after the Spanish-American War. While some Indigenous peoples’ homelands spanned the U.S.-Mexico border, other peoples migrated to Mexico specifically to escape U.S. settlement and control. The context of the War highlights their differing relationships with the border and the intensity of U.S. response to their mobility.
“How the Stories Should Be Told: Re-righting History in Canyon de Chelly, Navajo Nation.” The Oral History Review, vol. 51, no.1, pp. 6–29.
"The "Crisis" of Native American Mobility: Border-Crossing and the Influence of International Relations on Indian Policy, 1896-1898." Pacific Historical Review, vol. 93, no. 2, pp. 169-201.
Where the Red-Winged Blackbirds Sing: The Akimel O’odham and Cycles of Agricultural Transformation in the Phoenix Basin. University Press of Colorado, 2021.
“The Tohono O’odham ‘Attack’ on El Plomo: A Study in Sovereignty, Survivance, Security, and National Identity at the Dawn of the American Century.” Western Historical Quarterly, vol. 51, no. 2, 2020, pp. 137-160.
“’I on my horse, and love on me’: Contextualizing the Equestrian Metaphors of Sir Philip Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella.” Reading the Natural World in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: Perspectives on Ecology and the Environment, edited by Thomas Willard. Arizona Studies in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, 46, Brepols Publishers, 2020, pp. 177-232.
“Self-Fashioning for Survivance: Akimel O’odham Story and History in the Hispanic and Early American Periods.” Journal of the Southwest, vol. 61, no. 4, 2019, pp. 725-64.
“The Essence of Nightmare and the Anti-essentialism of Haitian History in René Philoctète’s Massacre River.” Writings on Caribbean History, Literature, Art and Culture: One Love, edited by Irline François, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2018, pp. 21-45.
“Battles, Syntheses, Revisions and Prophecies: Histories and Modernities in the Phoenix Indian School's Native American, 1901-1916.” Studies in American Indian Literatures, vol. 29, no. 3 2017, pp. 29-63.
“The Right to More than a Cabbage Patch: Akimel O’odham Sacred Stories and the Form and Content of Petitions to the Federal Government, 1899–1912.” Ethnohistory, vol. 63, no. 1, 2016, pp. 119–142.
“The Price of Pima Cotton: The Cooperative Testing and Demonstration Farm at Sacaton, Arizona, and the Decline of the Pima Agricultural Economy, 1907-1920.” Western Historical Quarterly, vol. 46, no.2, 2015, pp. 171–189.
“The New Egypt, Pima Cotton and the Role of Native Wage Labor on the Cooperative Testing and Demonstration Farm, Sacaton, Arizona, 1907-1917.” Agricultural History, vol. 88, no. 4, 2014, pp. 491-516.
“Indigenizing the Safety Zone: Contesting Ideologies in Foodways at the Chilocco Indian Industrial School, 1902-18.” Journal of the Southwest, vol. 55, no. 2, 2013, pp. 193-226.
“More than a Food Fight: Intellectual Traditions and Cultural Continuity in Chilocco’s Indian School Journal, 1902-1918.” American Indian Quarterly, vol. 37, no. 1/2, 2013, pp. 77–110.
“Jhumpa Lahiri’s ‘Hema and Kaushik’: An Anatomy of Loneliness, a Transformation of Tragedy.” South Asian Review, vol. 33, no. 2, 2012, pp. 117-38.
“Casting a Spell: Acts of Cultural Continuity in Carlisle Indian Industrial School’s The Red Man and Helper.” Wicazo Sa Review, vol. 26, no. 2, 2011, pp. 13-38.
François, Irline and Jennifer Bess. “Paradise Deferred: Utopia, Eutopia and Dystopia in Myriam Warner-Vieyra’s Juletane.” Anglistica AION: An Interdisciplinary Journal, vol. 14, no. 1, 2010, pp. 74-84.
2016 James Madison Prize, awarded for outstanding articles or essays on any aspect of the history of the federal government, the Society for History in the Federal Government.
“Indigenous Knowledge: Scaling the Impact of Archaeological Research up, out, and across.” Society for American Archaeology Annual Meeting. New Orleans, LA, 2024.
“The Indian Reorganization Act and Efforts to Restore the Pima Agricultural Economy on the Gila River," People and Places Lecture Series, Center for Southwest Research, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, 2021.
“Capacity-Building for All: Community-Based Learning Networks Fashioned to Survive a Pandemic.” Association of American Colleges and Universities Conference on General Education, Pedagogy, and Assessment, 2021.
“The Maasai of Kenya: A Case Study in Positive Peace and Strategic Adaptation to Globalization.” Thirteenth Global Studies Research Conference. Global Studies Research Network, Concordia University, Montréal, Canada, 2020.
“’Black Takes No Other Color’: Empiricism, Religion, and the Evolution of Ideologies of Exclusion.” Joint Conference for the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies and the Medieval Association of the Pacific, Phoenix, AZ, 2019.
“An Alternative to Conquest: Horsemanship and Philip Sidney’s Homage to Nature.” Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Phoenix, AZ, 2018.
“Unpacking the Mirage of Progress and Its Reign over History a Tribute to Michel-Rolph Trouillot.” Haitian Studies Association, Port-au-Prince, Haiti, 2013.
“Integrating Disciplines & Crossing Boundaries: Goucher College’s Senior Service-Learning Capstone 2002.” Paper delivered with Dr. Gail Edmonds, Ray Dabak (’02) and Constance Herasingh (’02). Association of American Colleges and Universities, St. Louis, MO, 2002.
“Making Connections: A Service-Learning Liberal Arts Course.” Maryland Association for Higher Education. Baltimore, MD, 2001.
“Artifacts and Ambiguities in Myriam Warner-Vieyra’s Juletane.” African Literature Association. Richmond, VA, 2001.
“Loud Silences and Original Endings: Narrative Design in Julia Alvarez’ How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents.” Northeast Modern Language Association. Buffalo, NY, 2000.