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 Literature I: Whose Freedom?
- 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 Articles and Editorials
Myth, Memory, and the Question of the Minute Man Statue | The Dial
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
Presentations / Conferences
Round table, “Lexington and Concord at 250,” Annual conference of the Organization of American Historians, April 5, 2025.
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.
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