Khalil Gibran Muhammad
- Assistant Professor, Department of History
- Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies
- Adjunct Assistant Professor, American Studies Program
Education
- Ph.D. at Rutgers University, 2004
- B.A. at University of Pennsylvania, 1993
Contact Information
| Ballantine Hall, 816 |
| (812) 855-7504 |
Background
In my research, I seek to uncover the various ways that social scientists and social reformers have imagined African Americans as a distinctly criminal population, and how their ideas about blacks as criminals have changed at specific times and places over the course of the 20th century. I am especially focused on the historical evolution of mainstream discourse around black criminality in comparison to white and immigrant criminality. I also study past and present connections between racial thinking and racial discrimination among crime-prevention agencies and within the criminal justice system. I am currently finishing my first book which is based on my dissertation entitled, "'Negro Stranger in Our Midst': The Origins of African-American Criminality in the Urban North, 1900-1940."
Before arriving at IU in the fall of 2005, I completed a two-year Mellon postdoctoral fellowship at the Vera Institute of Justice, a nonprofit criminal justice reform agency in New York City.
Selected Awards
- Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship on Race, Crime, and Justice at the Vera Institute of Justice, NYC. (2003-2005)
Research Interests
- Race-relations and racial ideology
- (Im)migration and urbanization (Northern U.S.)
- Social science and social reform
- Racial politics of criminal law, policing, juvenile delinquency, and punishment
Courses Recently Taught
- Urban History: American Dreams and Nightmares in the Modern American City
- Crime and Punishment in American History
- U.S. History since the Civil War
- African-American History Survey
- Graduate courses in 20th Century African American History and African American Urban History
Publication Highlights
Books
The Condemnation of Blackness: Ideas about Race and Crime in the Making of Modern Urban America. Cambridge, MA: (Harvard University Press, forthcoming).
Articles
"White May Be Might, But It's Not Always Right," The Washington Post, Sunday Outlook Section, December 9, 2007.
"Race, Crime, and Social Mobility: Black and Italian Undesirables in Modern America." in Shades of Black and White: Conflict and Collaboration Between Two Communities, edited by Dan Ashyk, Fred L. Gardaphe, and Anthony Julian Tamburri. Staten Island: American Italian Historical Association, 1999.