Joseph Yannielli
Before coming to Yale I studied history and politics at Wesleyan University and comparative fascism and utopian literature at the University of Oxford. My current research explores the international dimensions of American history.
In ponderous academic parlance, my dissertation is a transatlantic, comparative history of antislavery encounters in nineteenth-century Africa and America. At its core is the human drama of the Mendi Mission. A daring extension of the Underground Railroad into the hinterland of West Africa, the mission became a key frontier of action and imagination in the global contest over chattel slavery. The world we occupy today was forged in this contest, and as David Brion Davis put it: there is "no better window on the issues of power and exploitation, on outsiders and insiders, on the construction of race, on the expansion of the Euro-American West, on the early stages of consumer-driven economies, and on the promise and limitations of social reform."
I am also interested in memory and historical narrative, and I lead a study group entitled "History from Below," which explores grassroots perspectives on the past.
My advisor is David Blight.
