Elise Lemire
Professor of Literature
Author of three books about race and memory in the United States.
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Black Walden: Slavery and Its Aftermath in Concord, Massachusetts is now available on Audible.
Battle Green Vietnam: The 1971 March on Concord, Lexington, and Boston, was featured on C-SPAN:
These and Miscegenation: Making Race in America were published by the University of Pennsylvania Press.
More About Me
Professor Lemire’s work on the black enclave in Concord’s Walden Woods was covered by the Washington Post and featured on this PBS show:
Representative Courses
- American Women Writers
- Colloquium I and II (the gateway and capstone courses of the Literature major)
- Introduction to Gender and Sexuality
- Introduction to the Novel
- Literature, Race, and the Police State
- Literature of War
- Nineteenth-Century Novel in the US
- US Survey I (1500-1830) and US Survey II (1830-1945)
- The Vietnam War in US Literature and Film
- Vermeer in the World (team-taught with art historian Jane Kromm)
- Women and Film
Publications
Books
Battle Green Vietnam: The 1971 March on Concord, Lexington, and Boston. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021.
Black Walden: Slavery and Its Aftermath in Concord, Massachusetts. University of Pennsylvania Press, hardback 2009; paperback, 2019.
“Miscegenation:” Making Race in America. University of Pennsylvania Press, hardback 2002; paperback, 2009.
Recent Editorials
What Russian Soldiers and Vietnam Veterans Share | LA Progressive
Vietnam Veterans Transformed Memorial Day Weekend into a Holiday about Peace | The Washington Post
One if by Land, Two if by Sea, and Three if by the Capitol Steps | History News Network
The National Bicentennial Erased Antiwar Activism by Vietnam Veterans | History News Network
The Night Vietnam Veterans Stormed Bunker Hill | History News Network
The Real Patriots Invaded the Nation’s Capital Fifty Years Ago | History News Network
Presentations / Conferences
Panelist, “Fifty Years of Senses of Walden: Revisiting Cavell, Revisiting Thoreau,” Philosophy and Literature Conference, Banff, Alberta, Canada, May 26, 2022.
Book event at the Concord Museum, 7 PM, August 23, 2021. Battle Green Vietnam: The 1971 March on Concord, Lexington, and Boston - YouTube
Featured Speaker, “Thoreau and Vietnam Veterans Against the War,” The Thoreau Society Annual Gathering, July 10, 2021.
Invited Speaker, “Slavery in Lincoln, Massachusetts: Reckoning with Our Past, Planning for a More Honest and Inclusive Future,” Bemis Lecture in Partnership with the Lincoln Historical Society, 4 PM, June 19, 2021. Bemis Lecture on the Slavery History of Lincoln MA by Elise Lemire - YouTube
Book talk and panel discussion at the Lexington Historical Society, 7 PM, May 27, 2021. Lexington Vietnam Protest 50th Anniversary Event - YouTube
Book talk at the Boston Public Library, 6 PM, May 26, 2021. Use password Ku4F?e%@ to watch a video recording of the talk here: Passcode Required - Zoom
Zoom webinar on Making Slavery History Visible in the Walkable Landscape, 4 PM, Nov 1, 2020. A Conversation on Making Black History Visible in the Walkable Landscape - Zoom
“‘Shoot now, translate later’: Masculine Fraternity in the Canadian Contact Zone of Bon Cop, Bad Cop,” Annual Conference of the Association for Anglophone Postcolonial Studies, Frankfurt, Germany, May 21-24, 2020. CANCELLED DUE TO COVID-19.
“Traumatic Memory and Unreliable Narration in The Yellow Birds,” MLA International Symposium, Lisbon, Portugal, July 24, 2019.