Benjamin D. Weber
Assistant Professor of African American and African Studies at the University of California, Davis
Postdoctoral Fellow in International and Public Affairs, 2019-2020
Benjamin Weber is an interdisciplinary scholar of African American History, Carceral Studies, and International Legal and Political Thought. He received his PhD from Harvard University in 2017, and served as ACLS Mellon Public Fellow in New Orleans. He is at work on his first book, a history of race, incarceration, and empire, under contract with The New Press.
Ben has been recognized for his teaching and new media work, including being named the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) Outstanding Teacher of the Year for the United States, and winning and Omni Gold Award for the Calderwood US History Series produced by WGBH Boston for PBS Learning Media. He has worked as a Senior Associate at the Vera Institute of Justice and Alternate ROOTS, and as a public high school teacher in Los Angeles.
This fall, he will join the faculty at the University of California, Davis, as Assistant Professor of African American and African Studies.
Benjamin D. Weber, American Purgatory: Race, Empire, and 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 (forthcoming), 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
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