J.T. Roane

Dr. J. T. Roane, a 2008 graduate of the Carter G. Woodson Institute at the University of Virginia, is a historian broadly concerned with matters of geography, sexuality, and religion in relation to Black communities. He is at work on the manuscript, Dark Agoras: Insurgent Black Social Life and the Politics of Place in Philadelphia, which historicizes multiple modes of insurgent spatial assemblage Black communities articulated in Philadelphia in the second half of the twentieth century. He is the lead of the Black Ecologies Initiative and former co-senior editor of Black Perspectives, the digital platform of the African American Intellectual History Society (AAIHS). He received his Ph.D. in history from Columbia University.

Publications:

• "Black Ecologies, subaquatic life, and the Jim Crow enclosure of the Tidewater" Journal of Rural Studies 94, (2022): 227-238. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2022.06.006

• J.T. Roane, Megan Femi-Cole, Preeti Nayak, and Eve Tuck. “‘The Seeds of a Different World Are Already Alive in the Everyday Practices of Ordinary Black and Indigenous People’: An Interview with J.T. Roane.” Curriculum Inquiry 52, no. 2 (2022): 129–38. https://doi.org/10.1080/03626784.2022.2052638.

• J.T. Roane and Alexis Young. “Pedagogy at the Intersection of Black Studies and Black Ecologies.” Journal of American Studies 55, no. 5 (2021): 1255–58.

Media Appearances/Speaking Engagements:

• “The Rural Black Commons and Dispossession,” Media Rurality, Workshop Grierson Research Group, McGill University

• “The Rural Black Commons and Dispossession,” From Dispossession to Acts of Commoning Workshop, University of British Columbia--Allard Law Faculty

• Public History Workshop: Descendant Engagement, The College of William and Mary

Previous Organizations: 

• Arizona State University

• University of Cincinnati

• Columbia University

Accomplishments:

• Institute for Advanced Study, Social Sciences Fellow (Theme: Climate, Crisis, Politics)

• National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute “Towards a People's Landscape History” Fellow

• Crossroads Project Fellows grant, Princeton University, to support film “Plot.”

Upcoming Projects:

• “Dark Agoras: Insurgent Black Social Life and the Politics of Place in Philadelphia,” NYU Press

• “Fire, Philadelphia”

The Black Ecologies Signature Lab at the ISGRJ draws together threads in order to generate scholarship, artistry, and other resources that aid in infusing public and scholarly discourse as well as our broader cultural imaginaries with the insights generated through the analytical insights, methods, and theories related to Black Ecologies and its closely allied fields, including Black Geographies. The lab provides a suite of digital projects, speaker series and workshops, community engagement events, teaching and undergraduate program development, and publications to foment Rutgers as a major center for Black ecological studies for faculty, students, and community. 

https://globalracialjustice.rutgers.edu/Black_Ecologies

The Institute Project on Decoloniality 2021-2024 run by the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH) at the University of Edinburgh; and Writing Tamayame run by the Pueblo of Santa Ana tribal council and Tyler Peterson at Arizona State University. Additionally, there are two honorable mentions: Black Ecologies Lab by J.T. Roane and Teona Williams at Rutgers University; and The Zombified Podcast by Athena Aktipis at Arizona State University.

 Read more about the award here.

The 2025 Black Ecologies Summer Institute, hosted by Just Harvest Virginia,  was held from July 30 - August 3, 2025, in Richmond and Tappahannock, Virginia.

Students joined local fellows in a four-day intensive about indigenous (Rappahannock) and Afro-Virginian practices of place, land, and water stewardship, and alternative resource systems historically and in the contemporary period. 

Read more about the summer institute here. 

Congratulations to Black Ecologies Lab Co-Director Dr. Teona Williams for innovatively and expertly envisioning, spearheading, and executing the "Being Together in Place" convening in Newark, New Jersey from April 3 - 6, 2025.

The convening brought together international scholars, local activists, Rutgers students, graduate students from other institutions, and community organizers including Dr. Monica White, a senior scholar of sustainable community food systems, for a phenomenal and transformative discussion of Black Ecologies, placemaking, and shared struggles for spatial and ecological justice between Mississippi, Rio de Janeiro, Virginia, North Carolina, Louisiana, St. John, and other locations.

Read more about the convening here.