Benjamin D. Weber

Postdoctoral Fellow in International and Public Affairs

Biogaphy

Benjamin Weber is an interdisciplinary historian of the United States in the World specializing in African American History, Critical Prison Studies, and New Media. He received my PhD in History from Harvard in May 2017, and served as American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Mellon Public Fellow and Senior Associate at the Vera Institute of Justice and Alternate ROOTS in New Orleans. He is at work on his first book, a history of incarceration and American empire under contract with The New Press.

Ben teaches courses in Legal History, Critical Prison Studies, and International and Public Affairs, utilizing transnational approaches and digital methodologies. He has been recognized for his teaching and multimedia work, including being named the National Council of Social Studies (NCSS) Outstanding Teacher of the Year, receiving Harvard’s Derek Bok Center Certificate of Distinction in Teaching, and winning an Omni Gold Award for The Calderwood U.S. History Series produced by WGBH Boston for PBS Learning Media. Most recently, he co-directed Louisiana’s contribution to the States of Incarceration national public history project and traveling exhibit.

Publications

Benjamin D. Weber, American Purgatory: An Imperial History of the Carceral State, The New Press, (under contract), 2021

Benjamin D. Weber, The Strange Career of the Convict Clause: US Prison Imperialism in the Panamá Canal Zone, International Labor and Working-Class History (in preparation), 2019

Benjamin D. Weber, Fearing the Flood: Prison Revolt and Counterinsurgency in the US-Occupied Philippines, International Review of Social History, 2018        

Benjamin D. Weber, Fugitive Justice: The Possible Futures of Prison Records from US Colonial Rule in the Philippines, Archive Journal, 2017

Benjamin D. Weber, Teaching Histories of Race and Incarceration in the Prison Capital of the World, American Federation of Teachers Journal, 2016

Benjamin D. Weber, Geography for Civic Action in East Los Angeles, in Todd Kenreich, ed., Geography for Social Justice in the Classroom (New York: Routledge), 2012 

VIDEO

Slow Drag in the Big Uneasy, BlueSpark Collaborative, (creative producer), 2020

Visions of Justice in New Orleans, Vera Institute of Justice, (director), 2017

Sentenced to Slavery, Stuck in Jim Crow, States of Incarceration: A National Dialogue of Local Histories, (director), 2016

Slavery in Effect: A History Design Studio Briefing (prod. Vincent Brown),  Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, (guest scholar), 2016

The Calderwood US History Series with Historian Ben Weber, WGBH Boston and PBS Learning Media, (series host), 2015

Primary Sources of the Civil Rights Movement, Congressional Moments, Center on Congress & Teaching with Primary Sources, (guest scholar), 2013

Media 

Beyond Money Bail: Looking Back to Move Ahead, Vera Institute of Justice’s Think Justice Blog, June 27, 2018

Bail Bondage: The Price of Freedom, The Advocate / The Gambit (cover story), June 4, 2018

New Orleans’ Money Bond System Puts a Price on Freedom, Report Says, The Times-Picayune / Nola.com, May 14, 2018

New Exhibit at Ogden Profiles History of Mass Incarceration, Imprisonment in U.S., The Gambit, April 6, 2017

Mom of Jailed No Limit Rapper Talks Impact of Incarceration: ‘Not Just a DOC Number,’ The Times-Picayune / NOLA.com, April 22, 2017

Mellon Foundation Awards $150,000 Grant to the Humanities Action Lab, Including University of New Orleans, UNO Campus News, February 13, 2017

National Endowment for the Humanities Gives $250,000 Grant to Coalition that Includes University of New Orleans, UNO Campus News, January 22, 2016

What is the Meaning of Death while Serving Life? Prison Photography, 2016