My teaching interests lie at the intersection of race, gender and sexuality, my public-facing work focuses directly on issues of systemic racism and anti-Blackness, and my scholarship centers the lives of Black Women during slavery in the U.S. As a core faculty member in History and Gender Studies, I’m honored to be affiliated with American Studies, as well as African American and African Diaspora Studies, at IUB.

I’ve created and taught numerous undergraduate classes at IU that incorporate my research and my community-based justice work, such as “Wenches, Witches, Welfare Queens,” “Sex, Lies, and Diaries,” and “From Mammy to Michelle.” I also have a healthy roster of graduate readings courses and colloquia, including “African American History: to 1900,” “The Long Nineteenth Century in US History: 1790-1900,” “Black Women in US History,” “Gender in the Black Diaspora,” and “Slavery in the Atlantic World.”

I’m as passionate about my writing as I am about my work in the classroom. As an archival historian, I focus on the lives of enslaved and free Black Women in the Old South. My first book, Forging Freedom: Black Women and the Pursuit of Liberty in Antebellum Charleston, was published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2011 and won four book prizes. It examines how Black women in Charleston acquired, defined, and defended their own visions of freedom — including, but not limited to, their involvement in long-term sexual unions with white men. 

This led to the subject of my new book, The Vice President’s Black Wife: The Untold Life of Julia Chinn, which focuses on the long-term alliance of Julia Ann Chinn, an enslaved Black woman, with U.S. congressman, senator, and, Vice President Richard Mentor Johnson.

Areas of Expertise

Scholarship

Author Amrita Chakrabarti Myers standing in front of a projector screen, sharing her research on Julia Chinn
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Amrita poses between four of her student-mentees at an Association of Black Women Historians convening

DEIJ Consulting

Amrita wears a shirt that says "I'm a nasty woman," while teaching Indiana University students via Zoom.
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I work with elected officials, students, college faculty, and community members on a variety of diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice matters. From organizing grassroots training workshops, to running “difficult dialogue” groups, to creating and teaching anti-racist seminars, I have extensive experience in the area of racial justice work.

Training Examples: 

  • Departmental “Difficult Dialogues,” College Office of Diversity and Inclusion, Indiana University, 2020-21.

  • BLM, Anti-Racism Policy Training Seminar, Monroe County, Indiana, Elected Officials, January 2021.

  • Social Justice in America, Citizens Action Grassroots Training Workshop, Bloomington, IN, October 2020.

Public Speaking

Award-winning author Amrita Chakrabarti Myers stands at a podium during a book tour stop in Charleston for "Forging Freedom: Black Women and the Pursuit of Liberty in Antebellum Charleston""

I’ve been speaking to audiences, big and small, for 20+ years. These include women’s rights organizations, corporations, academic societies, universities, church groups, and more.  I’m equally comfortable speaking about my scholarly work on enslaved and free Black women as I am about contemporary issues of misogynoir, systemic racism, gender bias, microaggressions, unconscious bias in the workplace, the long history of policing in the US, and more.