Tamara J. Walker specializes in the history of slavery and gender in Latin America and its legacies in the modern era. She is the author of Exquisite Slaves: Race, Clothing, and Status in Colonial Lima, which was published by Cambridge University Press in 2017 and won the 2018 Harriet Tubman Prize from the Schomburg Center for Research on Black Culture. She is currently at work on two new research projects, one focused on race and visual culture in Latin America, and the other on the history of slavery and piracy in the Southern Pacific. Her teaching covers these diverse thematic areas as well, and she will be offering courses on topics such as Afro-Latin American Art, Afro-Andean History and Culture, and Gender and Slavery Latin America. In addition to her scholarly pursuits, Professor Walker is the co-founder of The Wandering Scholar, a 501c3 nonprofit focused on making international travel accessible to high school students from underrepresented backgrounds. This work has, in turn, shaped her writing and creative projects: she has written about race, culture, and travel for Slate, The Guardian, The Root, and Columbia Global Reports; is writing a trade book on the history of African Americans abroad for Crown; and co-hosts a podcast, Why We Wander, which covers all things travel.
Professor Walker obtained her BA in History and Spanish from the University of Pennsylvania in 2000 and earned her PhD in History from the University of Michigan in 2007. Professor Walker started her career as an Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania before joining the University of Toronto, where she was promoted to Associate Professor in 2020.
Selected Works
Travel, African American History, Biography, Memoir
History, Latin American History, Social and Population History, Area Studies