Special Episode - Prof. Mia Bay - Her career and vision as the new Paul Mellon Professor

In this special episode, we’re joined by the incoming Paul Mellon Professor, Mia Bay.She is a leading scholar of American and African American intellectual, cultural, and social history.She has won multiple book awards. Some of her influential works include ‘The White Image in the Black Mind’ (Oxford University Press, 2000), ‘Travelling Black: A Story of Race and Resistance’ (Harvard University Press, 2021), and key biographical texts on the anti-lynching crusader, Ida B. Wells, including ‘To Tell the Truth Freely: The Life of Ida B. Wells’ (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009) and ‘The Light of Truth: The Writings of An Anti-Lynching Crusader’ (Penguin Books, 2014).Bay’s research explores the history of ideas about race, the intellectual contributions of Black women, African American approaches to citizenship, and the history of race and transportation. Her current book project considers the history of African American ideas about Thomas Jefferson.We’re thrilled to welcome Dr. Bay and grateful to her for sharing her time to discuss her career, her research, her perspective on the field of history today, and her vision for her new role at Cambridge.Co-Hosts:Megan Renoir, PhD Candidate. Megan researches Indigenous sovereignty and land conflict.Shea Hendry, PhD Candidate. Shea’s research examines the children of loyalist refugees who embodied both American citizenship and British subjecthood, concurrently and consecutively, throughout the Early National Period.Production by Daisy Semmler (MPhil 2025).