Faculty

Profile

Jennifer A. Scott is an anthropologist, curator, public historian and museum expert. Her work, for over 25 years, explores connections between arts, history, place and social justice.

In 2022, The National Urban League appointed Jennifer as the founding Executive Director and Chief Curator of the Urban Civil Rights Museum (UCRM) expected to open in Harlem, New York in 2025. UCRM will be New York’s first museum dedicated to civil rights – and one of the first in the nation to focus on the history of civil rights in the North. The new Museum represents a historic opportunity to build a premier cultural and historical institution that will concentrate on the exploration of those narratives specific to the history of the Black freedom struggle that expanded dramatically in the aftermath of the Great Migration of Blacks northward in urban environments across America.

Prior to her post at UCRM, Professor Scott served in the inaugural position of Senior Vice President of Exhibitions and Programs at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American  History in Detroit, one of the nation's earliest and most significant black arts, history and cultural institutions. Before the Wright, she served, for nearly six years, as Director and Chief Curator at Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, a historic landmark and feminist museum in Chicago that elevated immigrant rights and racial and econmic justice. At Hull-House, Jennifer led the exhibitions, community engagement efforts and overall vision of the museum, launching a number of ground-breaking exhibitions and programs both within and outside the museum’s walls. In 2019, the Museum was recognized with the Award for Excellence in Diversity, Inclusion and Social Justice by the Association of Midwest Museums.

In Chicago, Jennifer also served as co-chair of the Chicago Monuments Project Advisory Committee, appointed in 2020 by Mayor Lori E. Lightfoot. The commission was created to lead a city-wide initiative that would help rethink the city’s monuments and public memorials, create public engagement opportunities around problematic monuments and re-imagine new monuments and public art commissions. The project addressed the hard truths of Chicago’s racial history, confronted the ways in which that history has and has not been memorialized, and worked towards develop a framework for marking public space that elevates new ways to memorialize Chicago’s history more equitably and accurately. Jennifer was also appointed by Mayor Lightfoot to the City of Chicago’s Cultural Advisory Council in 2020. She served as co-chair for the City’s Museum Task Force created to help museums re-open under the pandemic. And in 2020, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker also appointed Jennifer to the newly re-activated Illinois Holocaust and Genocide Commission to provide guidance for genocide education, public memorial and commemoration across the State. 

Before her work in Chicago, Professor Scott served as the Vice Director and Director of Research for a decade at Weeksville Heritage Center, a museum and nationally significant historic site in Brooklyn, New York, that memorializes a Free Black, independent community in the 19^thcentury. There, she led the museum's research efforts and co-curated a number of public programs and exhibitions, including two multi-site history and public art exhibitions: In Pursuit of Freedom, which explored the anti-slavery and abolition history of Brooklyn, and, Funk, God, Jazz, and Medicine: Black Radical Brooklyn in partnership with Creative Time (2014) that explored historical practices of community resistance. Jennifer was proudly part of the team that helped to restore and re-interpret the historic site and develop its trademark innovative programming, community engagement and new applications of history, culture and the arts. She helped to build a new $40 million modern center on the site and transform the emerging campus into a present-day cultural destination.

As an oral historian, Jennifer launched Weeksville’s oral history project, producing Weelsville's first audio archive in over 50 years. This included "The Lost Jazz Shrines of Brooklyn," the first and only Brooklyn jazz oral history archive. The Weeksville oral histories tell stories that touch on a nearly a century of Brooklyn history. Jennifer has conducted oral history and genealogy workshops and institutes with artists, community organizations and universities, and served on oral history advisory boards, including StoryCorps Griot, a national oral history project, which collected the stories of African Americans throughout the US, in collaboration with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History & Culture, the American Folklife Center and the Library of Congress. She also served as an oral historian for Brooklyn Historical Society’s Crossing Borders, Bridging Generations (CBBG), a project to encourage dialogue about differences and to challenge existing social, racial, ethnic, and national, categories.   

Jennifer serves on a number of boards. She is currently the Vice President for the Association of Midwest Museums, a Board Member for the National Association for Museum Exhibition, and in 2022 she was appointed to editorial board of The Public Historian, a journal of the National Council on Public History.

Professor Scott has taught at The New School for Public Engagement in New York for more than 20 years, and has served as core faculty for a combined 12 years in the graduate program of Museum and Exhibition Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago and at Pratt Institute’s Art and Cultural Management Graduate School, where she designed and taught the foundational course, Cultural Pluralism in the US: Museum Exhibitions and Issues of Cultural Representation. Professor Scott teaches courses in arts and civic engagement, cultural anthropology, race and ethnic studies, global studies and museum studies. She researches, writes and lectures locally and internationally on arts and social change, public memory and place, contested histories and innovative strategies for museums and public history sites. At The New School, Professor Scott is also a Faculty Member on the Creative Community Development Advisory Committee. 

As a Fulbright Scholar, Professor Scott has conducted anthropological and art historical research in West Africa, studying women dressmakers, textiles, cloth and material culture in urban Accra, Ghana and throughout the region.  She is a contributor to a number of museum, heritage and history publications.

Jennifer is a co-author and co-editor of Anywhere but Here: Black Intellectuals, the Atlantic World and Beyond (University Press of Mississippi, 2015/  2017), a volume expanding the traditional boundaries of the “Black Atlantic” and presenting new research on international and historical intellectual exchanges from the 19^thcentury to the present. Other recent publications include: a contribution to Transforming Community Development Through Arts and Culture (2019), “Statues of Limitation: Are Museums the Rightful Home for Confederate Monuments?”(2019); “ “Designing for Outrage: Inviting Disruption and Contested Truth Into Museum Exhibitions”(2017);and “Reimagining Freedom in the Twenty-first Century at a Post-Emancipation Site" (2015). Professor Scott  holds degrees in Philosophy, African American Studies/History, and Anthropology from Stanford University; the University of California, Los Angeles; and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, respectively. 

Professional Affiliation

Faculty Advisory Member, Creative Community Development Advisory Committee, The New School, Nov. 2020- Pres. 

Editorial Board Member, The Public Historian, a journal of the National Council on PublicHistory (NCPH), 2022- Pres.

Vice-President, Association of Midwest Museums (AMM); Present; Co-Chair for AMM 2018 Annual Conference, in 2017; 2017-Pres.

Board Member for National Association for Museum Exhibitions, 2018 - Pres.

Co-Chair of the Chicago Monuments Project Advisory Committee for The City of Chicago, Appointed by Mayor Lori E. Lightfoot. A collaboration between the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE), the Chicago Parks District and Chicago Public Schools (CPS), August 12, 2020 – August 2021.

Cultural Advisory Council Member of the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) for The City of Chicago, Appointed by Mayor Lori E. Lightfoot, 2020 – 2021.

Illinois Holocaust and Genocide Commission Member appointed by Illinois Goverenor JB Pritzker, 2020--2021.

2021 Programming Committee for Organization of American Historians (OAH) Annual Conference, 2019 - 2021 –Washington DC.

2020 Programming Committee Member for National Council on Public History (NCPH) Annual Conference and 40^th Anniversary, 2019-2020 –Atlanta, GA.

Advisory Council, Maxwell Street Market, City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs (DCASE), 2019- 2020.

Mentor Curator for HATCH Projects, artist & curatorial residencies at the Chicago Artists Coalition (CAC), 2016-2018.  

Juror for “Excellence in Exhibition Label Writing Competition,” national competition sponsored by the American Alliance of Museum’s (AAM) Curators Committee (CurCom) in cooperation with EdCom and NAME, 2016-2018.

Recent Publications

Contributor to Where The Future Came From: A Collective Research Project on the Integral Role of Feminism in Chicago’s Artist-Run Culture From the Late Nineteenth Century to the Present, ed., Meg Duguid, Soberscove Press, Chicago IL, 2020.

Contributor to Transforming Community Development Through Arts and Culture, eds., Jeremy Liu & Victor Rubin from PolicyLink and Lyz Crane from ArtPlace America. Chapter: “Community History, Identity, and Social Change: Reflections from Researchers on the Potential of Arts & Culture.” Community Development, Innovation Review, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, Volume 14, Issue 2, 2019. / Innovation Review 2019-2.

Contributor to Eds.,Yesomi Umolu, Sepake Angiama, and Paulo Tavares,…and other such stories, exhibition catalog of the 2019 Chicago Architecture Biennial, Columbia University Press, Columbia Books on Architecture and the City, October 2019.

Statues of Limitations:Are Museums the Rightful Home for Confederate Monuments?” co-authored by Janeen Bryant, Jennifer Scott and Suzanne Serif, American Alliance of Museums (AAM) Magazine, March-April 2019. 

“Supporting Vibrant Neighborhoods: How Do Museums Address Displacement?" Association of Midwest Museums, June 9, 2018.

“Are Museums the Rightful Home for Confederate Monuments?” American Alliance of Museums (AAM), Center for the Future of Museums (CFM) Blog, April 3, 2018. Co-authored by: Janeen Bryant, Benjamin Filene, Louis Nelson, Jennifer Scott, and Suzanne Seriff as a preview for a session at the 2018 AAM annual meeting. 

"Designing for Outrage: Inviting Contested Truth Into Museum Exhibitions" (in Exhibition, National Association for Museum Exhibition (NAME) (Spring 2017)

Contributor to Museums in Motion: An Introduction to the History and Functions of Museums, Third Edition, Edward Alexander, Mary Alexander and Juliee Decker; Rowman & Littlefield Publishers; 3rd edition, March 2017.

Co-Editor for  Museums and Civic Discourse: Past, Present and Emerging Futures, (forthcoming- project:2015- Present)  

“Resources on Justice – Jennifer Scott,” Open Engagement, April 19, 2017. 

“Reimagining Freedom in the Twenty-first Century at a Post-Emancipation Site,” (The Public Historian, University of California Press, Vol. 37, No. 2, pp. 73–88, May 2015).

Anywhere but Here: Black Intellectuals in the Atlantic World and Beyond, (University Press of Mississippi/ January 2015; Paperback September 2017)

“History Off the Chain: Liberating the Narrative,” (Inspiring Action: Museums and Social Change, Museumsetc/ Edinburgh [2009]; reprinted 2016)

“Taken Not Granted: Radical Democratic Concepts of Freedom in Museums,” (The Radical Museum: democracy, dialogue & debate, MuseumID/ 2011)

“The Relevancy – Driven Museum,” (The Museum: Agent of Social Change, Heritage365/ 2008)

“Exodus in Limestone,” Hidden New York: A Guide to Places that Matter (Rutgers University Press/ 2006)

Performances and Appearances

Invited Speaker for conference “Inheritance: How Communities are Responding to Controversial Artwork.” Panelist ffor opening plenary session, “The Burdens of Inheritance.” Annual Public Humanities Conference, John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities, Brown University, April 28, 2022 (virtual).

Chair and Panelist for "Evolving Exhibitions of Conscience: Exhibitions for Social Justice,” Association of Midwest Museums Annual Conference, 2021. 

Invited Lecturer for session, ‘Statue Wars’ and the Changing Memorial Landscape,” part of seminar WGS-4401-001 – Advanced Topics: Feminism and Public Memory, The University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, 2021.

Chair and Panelist for session, “Belonging and Displacement: Stories Beyond Inclusion,” National Conference on Public History Annual Conference. Theme: "The Presence and Persistence of Stories.2021.

Invited Speaker for session, Recovery: Approaches to Monuments and Memory in the Academy as a part of the ‘Monuments, Markers, and Memory 2021 Symposium Series. 2021. 

Moderator and Invited Speaker for Together We Heal Virtual Summit 2021, Hosted by The City of Chicago, Chicago, IL, 2021.“aimed at building racial healing across Chicago…to promote civic unity by encouraging Chicagoans to connect across lines of difference and support a collective conversation about our truth and our promise as a City.”

Invited Speaker for “Memorial Reckoning,” co-presented by the Critical Race Network (CRN) at the University of Winnipeg and the Centre for Research in Cultural Studies (CRiCS) at the University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, 2021.

Invited Speaker for program series, “Essential Work in the Cultural Field: Public Spaces” sponsored by Museum Association of New York (MANY) and Museum Hue, 2020.

Moderator for Opening Plenary, “Creative Placemaking – Where Are We Now?” sponsored by ArtPlace America for its 10-year virtual summit, 2020.

Panelist for Museums and Social Justice Series session, “The History of Art and Feminism: Where the Future Came From,” 2020.

Invited Lecturer for presentation, “Monuments and Memorials in Chicago and Beyond: Contested Heritage in Public Spaces,” Wilmette Historical Society, Illinois, October 15, 2020. 

Panelist for session “Dialogue Builds Lasting Cultures of Human Rights,” Annual Meeting for the American Association for State and Local History, 2020. 

Panelist for Museums and Social Justice Series session, “Curatorial Collaborations: Exhibitions for Social Justice,” 2020,

Invited Lecturer for Creative Lab for Cultural Leaders (CLCL) and School of the Art Institute (SAIC), 2020. 

Moderator for “Museums and Monuments” sponsored by the Chicago Humanities Festival, 2020. 

Invited Speaker for "The Activist Museum: Jane Addams’ Leadership and the Crises of Our Time: Racial Unrest, Pandemic, and War,” A Webinar as part of Fielding Graduate University Virtual Summer Session, 2020.

Speaker for Transforming Community Development through Arts and Culture program on panel, “Expanded Imagination: New Visions for Community Futures,” Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA, 2019.

Panelist for session “Doing Public Scholarship: In, With and For Communities,” American Studies Association Annual Conference (ASA) Honolulu, HI., 2019.

“Activating History: Museums as Sites for Social Justice,” Annual Sczepaniak Lecture, Lewis University, Illinois, 2019. 

“Activating History: Settlement Museums as Sites of Conscience,” Mary Whiton Calkins Lecture, The Society for the History of Psychology, American Psychological Association’s Annual Convention (APA) Chicago, IL. 2019.

Invited Speaker for  Arts, Place and Social Change for “And Other Such Stories” conversation, hosted by Chicago Architecture Biennial, Arts Club of Chicago Luncheon, 2019.

“A Highway Runs Through It: How Museums Address Stories of Displacement,” panelist for a session at The Museum Innovation Forum/MCNx New Orleans. In celebration of International Museum Day, New Orleans Jazz Museum New Orleans, LA. 2019.  

Keynote Address: "Just Neighborhoods: Museums Engaging Communities Around Social Justice,” William T. Young Lecture Series, Marilyn Younger Conley School of Social Work - 25^thAnniversary Celebration, Brescia University, Owensboro, KY, 2019.

Keynote Address: “Hands On! The Intersection of Arts and Social Change at Hull-House,” Ramold Center Open House, Continuing Education Presentation and 25^thAnniversary Award Ceremony, Brescia University, Owensboro, KY, 2019.

“Telling Big Stories in history Museums: Exhibitions, Narrative and Synthesis.” panlelist for session at American Historical Association (AHA) Annual Conference, Chicago, IL, 2019.

Invited Gallery Talk: “Women’s Work at Hull-House and Beyond: The Feminist Agenda through Arts and Crafts,”in conjunction with Where the Future Came From (Nov. – Feb. 15, 2019), an exhibition focusing on the role of feminist artist-run activities in Chicago from the late 19th century to the present. Glass Curtain Gallery, Columbia College, Chicago, IL, 2018.

“Architecture, Place, Memory & Displacement,” Invited Speaker for international Roundtable Presentation, sponsored by Chicago Architecture Biennial, Learning Geographies Research Trip, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2018.

Keynote Address for "Careers in History Symposium" at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, Department of History, (IUPUI), sponsored by the National Council on Public History (NCPH), Indianapolis, IN, 2018.

"A Highway Runs Through It: Stories of Displacement,” panelist for session at Association of Midwest Museums, Annual Conference theme: Fostering Transparency, Strengthening Public Trust, Chicago, IL, 2018.

"Living Dangerously: The Social Change Work of Jane Addams and the Hull-House Settlement,” Keynote Pride Lecture at Driehaus Museum, Chicago, Il, 2018.

"Are Museums the Rightful Home for Confederate Monuments?" panelist at session for American Alliance of Museums (AAM) 2018 Annual Meeting & Museum Expo, Phoenix, Arizona, 2018. 

Gallery Discussion, “Post Now and Post New: Afro-Futurist Themes in Contemporary Art Practice for exhibition, In Their Own Form,” that brings together "13 artists and 33 photographic and video works that negotiate a range of Afro-Diasporic experiences." Curated by Sheridan Tucker Anderson. Panel discussion focuses on Afrofuturist themes in contemporary art practice, and includes artists, D. Denenge Duyst-Akpem and Ingrid LaFleur. Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, IL, 2018.

“Past, Present, and Future: The Changing Roles of Women in Planning,” invited panelist for mini-symposium, Women, Gender, Planning in the Workplace. Sponsored by the Department of Urban Policy and Planning at University of Illinois at Chicago, Women in Planning and Public Affairs (WPPA), the Latino Planning Organization for Development, Education, and Regeneration (LPODER), and the Society for Black Urban Planners (SBUP). Great Cities Institute, UIC, Chicago, Il, 2018.

“Participatory Arts: Using Contemporary Art to Activate Social Justice Issues at Historic Sites" invited presentation for symposium: Contemporary Art in Historic Places, 2018 CAP Symposium,Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, Miami, Florida, 2018.

Webinar Presentation: Designing for Outrage: Inviting Disruption into Exhibitions. Live, 90-minute webcast hosted by American Alliance of Museums and National Association for Museum Exhibition (NAME), 2017.

In the Company of Radical Women" PastForward 2017, radical women's history workshop for National Trust for HIstoric Preservation Conference, Chicago, IL, 2017 

“The Power of Moments in Leading Neighborhood Preservation/ Change," 2017 Activating Heritage Conference, Chicago Cultural Alliance, Chicago, IL, 2017.

Spatial Justice and Expanded Creative Practice,” Artists in Communities, Public Art Symposium & Public Art Plan, Sponsored by the City of Chicago, Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, IL, 2017

"Sustainability of Black Archives" Symposium sponsored by Weeksville Heritage Center, Brooklyn, New York, 2017.

“‘Making the West Side’ Digs Deep Into History of Museum’s Backyard,” WBEZ, 91.5 Chicago, Morning Shift radio program, 2017. 

"Designing For Outrage" for Designing Emotion panel, sponsored by the National Association for Museum Exhibition (NAME). American Alliance of Museums (AAM) 2017 Annual Meeting and Museum Expo, St. Louis, MO, 2017.

Centering Outrage: Engaging Marginalized Histories in Museums” Keynote Address for Institute: Rethinking the Museum Through Collaboration and Community-Based Curatorial Practices, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, 2017.

“Activating Marginalized Histories: Museums as Catalysts for Social Change.” Keynote Address - part of lecture series: Dangerous Memories: Conversations around the past, social justice and constructing university memory, Duke Human Rights Center at the Franklin Humanities Institute, Duke University, 2017.

“Arts and Civic Strategy: Recognizing the Capacity of Arts and Culture to Bring Us Closer to the Society We Want to See,” sponsored by the Joyce Foundation Culture Convening Series in the Great Lakes, Chicago, IL, 2017.

“Using History to Engage Communities on Chicago’s West Side,” part of Memorializing Displacement, two-day conference, hosted by Washington University and the University of Missouri St. Louis, 2016.

“Leveraging History: Participation, Exclusion and Citizenship,” Museum Ideas 2016, Annual Conference, Science Museum, London, England, 2016.

“Preserving Communities: Rehabilitating Preservation Through Civic Engagement,” National Parks Symposium: Challenging the Exclusive Past: Can Federal Agencies Help Re-orient and Diversify Public Culture in the 21^st Century? Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore, Maryland, 2016.

“Participatory History: Museums and Public Engagement,” Keynote Address for 10-year Anniversary Lecture for Obermann Center for Advanced Studies, Graduate Institute on Public Engagement and the Academy, University of Iowa, Iowa, 2016.

“Art and Pedagogy” and “Education and the Right to the City,” Creative Time Summit, New York, 2015.

Anywhere But Here: Black Intellectuals in the Atlantic World and Beyond, “Cultural Mastery in Foreign Spaces:  Evolving Visions of Home and Identity,” 14th Annual Transatlantic Studies Association Conference, Roosevelt Study Center, Middelburg, The Netherlands, 2015.

“Radical Museology” Keynote for Center for Ethnographic Research and Exhibition in the Aftermath of Violence (CEREV), Concordia University, Montreal, Canada, 2015.

Invited Speaker, “History and Civic Engagement,” Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Illinois, 2015.

Panelist, “Museums and Public History Sites” Healing History: memory, legacy and social change. Sponsored by Initiatives of Change/Hope in the Cities in collaboration with the University of Richmond and Virginia Commonwealth University. Richmond, Virginia, 015.

“Museums and Activism” in conjunction with exhibition, Witness: Art and Civil Rights in the Sixties Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, New York, 2014.

“Art and Social Practice in Urban Spaces,” sponsored by Grey Art Gallery, New York University, NYU Florence, Italy, and Creative Time, La Pietra Conference Center, Florence, Italy, 2012.

“Changing the World: Perspectives on the Caribbean Diaspora,” reflecting with artists/filmmakers on the evolution of the transatlantic space and the contemporary, on 50 years of independence for Jamaica and Trinidad. The British Museum, London, England, 2012.

“Normalcy as Innovation: Radical Dignity and the Right to Historical Inclusion” as part of the session,  “Building a Fairer Future: Social Responsibility and Cultural Sustainability” for Museum Ideas 2012 Conference: Innovation in the Participatory Era, Museum of London, Docklands, London, England, 2012.

“Building a 21st Century Museum: Innovative Interpretations of Freedom and Approaches to Fundraising, Research, and Programming,” Association of African American Museums (AAAM) Annual Conference: Commemorating Struggles, Claiming Freedom, Reginald Lewis Museum, Baltimore, Maryland, 2012.

“Early African & African-American Communities in New York 17th to 19th Centuries”  Schomburg Center for Research and Culture, New York, 2011.

“Art on Parade: Between Procession and Demonstration, Carnival and Spectacle,” Wyoming, Ludlow 38 Gallery, Goethe Center, New York, New York, 2009.

“The Use of Textiles in the Work of Yinka Shonibare,” Gallery Talk for exhibition, “Yinka Shonibare MBE,” Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, New York, a major mid-career survey of work by UK/ Nigerian artist, 2009. 

“Traditional and Contemporary African Dress,” Program in Costume Studies, Department of Art and Art Professions, New York University, New York, 2009.

Research Interests

Ethnology/ Ethnography; Women, Dress, cloth/ textiles & Material Culture; African Diaspora; West Africa; Material Culture; Narrative/Oral history; Public Memory, Contested Heritage Sites, Memorials and Monuments, Museums and Public Engagement;