Esther Jones
Associate Professor, English
Associate Provost for Faculty Affairs
Scholarly Interests
African American, African Diaspora, Literature and Medicine, Medical Humanities, Race, Gender, Feminism, Womanism, Cultural Studies, Bioethics, Black Studies, American Literature, Caribbean Literature, Popular Culture, Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction
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Esther L. Jones currently serves as Associate Provost and Dean of the Faculty on the senior leadership team at Clark University. She is responsible for the recruitment, hiring, retention, and development of faculty at all career stages.
Upon her arrival at Clark, she was named the E. Franklin Frazier Chair of African American Literature, Theory and Culture in the English Department, where she holds a tenured position. In her prior capacity as a regular member of the faculty, she taught American and African American literature and culture, including Major American Writers II, African American Literature I and II, Special Topics courses in African American literature, literature and medicine, and speculative fiction. Her research and publications include subjects ranging from identity formation and intimate partner violence in popular culture to race, gender, and bioethics in science fiction.Her book, Medicine and Ethics in Black Women’s Speculative Fiction, examines the constructions of black pathology and bioethics in science fiction by contemporary black women writers. Examining the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, class, and disability, Jones explores historical constructions of difference within the medical establishment, the ways in which ethical paradigms and practices variously respond to embodied difference, and black women science fiction writers’ responses to ethics, empathy, and the politics of difference within medicine.
Degrees
- Ph.D., Ohio State University, 2006
- M.A., Ohio State University, 2001
- B.A., Fisk University, 1998
Affiliated Department(s)
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Scholarly and Creative Works
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Conversations about Arts, Humanities, and Health: Literature, Medicine, and Race
Conversations about Arts. Humanities, and Health Podcast
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University of Kent
May
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2021
Sponsored by University of Kent, UK
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“Living Dystopia: Making Sense of Pandemic Realities of Race, Health and Ethics through Speculative Fiction”
The Alexander Richman, M.D. Lecture Series at The Academy for Medicine and the Humanities, a division of the department of Medical Education
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Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York City.
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2021
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February
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2021
The Conversation US
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Raced Bodies, Erased Lives: Race in Young Adult Speculative Fiction
Chapter: "Black Girl Magic" Bioethics and the Reinvention of the Mad Scientist Trope in Black YA Speculative FictionPublished by University Press of Mississippi
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2021
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“Science Fiction Builds Mental Resiliency in Young Readers”
May
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2020
TheConversation.com
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Science fiction builds mental resiliency in young readers
May
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2020
The Conversation U.S.
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Critical Race Theory and the Critical Medical Humanities: Theory and Practice at the Intersection of Race and Medicine in the Age of COVID-19
“ReImagining/Reinventing Medical Humanities Symposium”
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Stonybrook University
March
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2020
Sponsored by Stonybrook Humanities Institute
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African American & African Studies at 50 Years: Implications for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion & the Future of Higher Education
This is Us: 50 Years of African American & African Studies
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Columbus, OH
September
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2019
Sponsored by Department of African & African American Studies at Ohio State University
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