American Madness: Virgin Lands, National Parks and Colonial Myths

“American Madness: Virgin Lands, National Parks and Colonial Myths” interrogates the historical weaponization of “virginity” as a narrative tool that has enabled and exacerbated territorial expansion within and outside of the contiguous United States. Using the Virgin Islands National Park–a conservation site located on the island of St. John in the American territory of the United States Virgin Islands–as a case study, this talk explores how myths about land, places and people function to normalize U.S. empire and its attendant illogics–including that of dispossession and political disenfranchisement.
Dr. Jessica S. Samuel is an educator, interdisciplinary scholar, and decolonial activist whose work focuses on race, education, colonialism and the environment, including where they all might converge, in the United States and Caribbean. She is also the founder & CEO of Radical Education & Advocacy League, LLC (REAL), an educational equity firm focused on helping BIPOC students thrive, not just survive. Dr. Samuel serves as Chair of the Education Committee for Right to Democracy, an organization committed to confronting U.S. colonialism in all five American territories and is a current member of Education Leaders of Color (EdLoC). Her work has been supported by the Social Welfare History Project, Mellon Foundation, Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, and Social Science Research Council. Dr. Samuel holds a PhD in American Studies from Boston University, a Master of Education from the University of Missouri-St. Louis, and a Bachelor in African American Studies and Anthropology from Wesleyan University. She is an alumna of the Institute for the Recruitment of Teachers, Teach for America, Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship, and QuestBridge Scholars program. Currently, Dr. Samuel holds an appointment as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of African & African American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis.
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