Jess Pearson (they\/them) joined the Macalester faculty in 2016 and is currently Associate Professor of European History, with a focus on Europe in the wider world. After growing up in Minnesota, Professor Pearson earned a BA in History and French from Kalamazoo College in 2006 and a PhD in History and French Studies from New York University in 2013.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Professor Pearson\u2019s research explores the history of European decolonization from a global vantage point. In their first book, The Colonial Politics of Global Health: France and the United Nations in Postwar Africa<\/em><\/a> (Harvard University Press, 2018), Professor Pearson uses global public health as a lens to explore the clash between internationalism and imperialism in French-occupied Africa in the 1940s and 1950s. Click here<\/a> to listen to an interview about their book on the New Books Network. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Building on their interests in the history of international organizations and the end of empire, Professor Pearson has also co-edited a volume on The United Nations and Decolonization<\/em><\/a>, published by Routledge in 2020 and is also the editor of a special issue of French Politics, Culture, and Society<\/em><\/a> on \u201cFrench Decolonization in Global Perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Currently, Professor Pearson is working on a book project entitled \u201cTraveling to the End of Empire,\u201d which explores how people moved through the decolonizing world in search of relaxation, discovery, and independence\u2014both personal and political. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Professor Pearson\u2019s work is based on archival research conducted in Aix-en-Provence, Dakar, London, Nantes, New York, Paris, Rabat, and Washington D.C. In the era of Covid-19, they voyaged the globe as an armchair time traveler, spending research time perusing guidebooks, in-flight magazines, maps, and tourism brochures at home in St. Paul. <\/p>\n\n\n\n At Macalester, Professor Pearson offers core courses on modern Europe in the world. They also teach classes on the history of empire and decolonization, race and immigration, gender and sexuality, global health, and travel and tourism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Prior to joining the history department at Macalester, Professor Pearson was a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities at Tulane University and Assistant Professor of European Studies at the University of Oklahoma\u2019s College of International Studies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Professor Pearson\u2019s office hours for Fall 2026 are Tuesdays from 3:00-5:00pm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2357,"template":"","class_list":["post-385","profile","type-profile","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile\/385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/profile"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile\/385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2469,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile\/385\/revisions\/2469"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}