African American Women Scholars and International Research: Dr. Anna Julia Cooper’s Legacy of Study Abroad

Abstract

In this article, a little-known but detailed history of Black women’s tradition of study abroad is presented. Specifically, the story of Dr. Anna Julia Cooper is situated within the landscape of historic African American students who studied in Japan, Germany, Jamaica, England, Italy, Haiti, India, West Africa, and Thailand, in addition to France. The story of Cooper’s intellectual production is especially intriguing because, at a time when Black women were just beginning to pursue doctorates in the United States, Anna Cooper chose to earn her Ph.D. from the Sorbonne in Paris. In this article, it is demonstrated that her research agenda and institutional choice reflected a popular trend of Black academics to construct their scholarly identities with an international foundation. The intersection of race, gender, nationality, language, and culture are critical areas of inquiry from which to study higher education.