Jasmine Nichole Cobb (NHC Fellow, 2025–26)

Jasmine Nichole Cobb is a visual and cultural historian, writing nonfiction about Black women’s freedom. She is the Earl D. McLean Jr. Professor of African & African American Studies with a joint appointment in the Department of Art, Art History & Visual Studies at Duke University. At the National Humanities Center she will work on The Pictorial Life of Harriet Tubman, a book that explores the visual history of the abolitionist, as well as a creative nonfiction work on single women and travel.

Cobb’s most recent book, New Growth: The Art and Texture of Black Hair, considers the concept and portrayal of Afro-textured hair. This book offers a long view of the cultural and textural significance of natural hair in popular culture and fine art. Cobb’s first book, Picture Freedom: Remaking Black Visuality in the Early Nineteenth Century, investigates early ideas about emancipation and African American citizenship before the Thirteenth Amendment. In addition to books, Cobb writes commissions as well as consults on exhibitions, curates public programs, and offers workshops that explore art, culture, and collecting.

Selected Publications

• Cobb, Jasmine Nichole. Picture Freedom: Remaking Black Visuality in the Early Nineteenth Century. New York: New York University Press, 2015.
• Cobb, Jasmine Nichole, ed. In African American Literature in Transition, 1800–1830, i–i. African American Literature in Transition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021.
• Cobb, Jasmine Nichole. New Growth: The Art and Texture of Black Hair. Durham: Duke University Press, 2022.
• Cobb, Jasmine Nichole. “A More Perfect Union: Black Freedoms, White Houses.” Public Culture 28, no. 1 (2016): 63–87.