Dr. Jane Rhodes
Dean for the Study of Race and Ethnicity

Jane Rhodes is Dean for the Study of Race and Ethnicity and Professor and Chair of American Studies at Macalester College. She earned B.S. and M.A. degrees from Syracuse University, and a Ph. D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Rhodes specializes in the study of race, gender and mass media; the black press; and media and social movements. Prior to joining the Macalester faculty, Rhodes taught in the Ethnic Studies Department at the University of California, San Diego.  She has also been on the faculties of Indiana University and S.U.N.Y. Cortland. Rhodes’ first book Mary Ann Shadd Cary: The Black Press and Protest in the Nineteenth Century (Indiana University Press, 1998), was named the best book in mass communication history by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Her new book, Framing the Black Panthers: The Spectacular Rise of a Black Power Icon (The New Press) was published in Fall 2007. Rhodes was featured in the award-winning documentary The Black Press: Soldiers Without Swords (California Newsreel), and has been the recipient of a President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship from the University of California, a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship, and a research fellowship from the University of London. Her writing has been published in numerous book and journals including The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, Feminist Media Studies, The Canadian Review of American Studies, Critical Studies in Media Communication, and Media History.