Joey Jennings is a fourth-year Doctoral Candidate and research assistant in the sociology department at the University of Maryland. In 2019, the National Science Foundation awarded him a Graduate Research Fellowship (NSF GRFP) making him one of three sociology undergraduates in the nation selected during this term. He is a former NCAA Division-1 Track and Field athlete and a graduate of Winthrop University. Joey's current dissertation work investigates the peculiar institution that is U.S. American Slavery. Specifically, he is coding 18th-century newspaper advertisements documenting runaway enslaved persons to form a greater understanding of Black agency, identity, and resistance during colonial U.S. slavery. This dissertation project currently has three outlined chapters. First, Joey draws on social movement research and historical records of events to assess monthly variation in runaways to propose an innovative expansion and potential refinement of resistance theory. Second, he employs an intersectional model asking how aspects of runaway advertisements vary across various lived differences between enslaved women and men. This chapter recognizes the importance of gender within slavery by acknowledging how the processes of slavery were not monolithic. Third, Joey employs runaway ad data on skin color and enslaver rewards to investigate processes of colorism within the institution of slavery.
Joey's research critically investigates conversations about race, colorism, intersectionality, and resistance. He also has invested interest in scholarship about the sociology of sport and the politics of hip hop.
Areas of Interest
- Race/Ethnicity
- Colorism
- Intersectionality
- Resistance
- Social Inequality
- Sociology of Sport
Degrees
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B.A.Winthrop University: Sociology Major with Spanish Minor
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M.A.University of Maryland, College Park: Sociology
Awards
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2019-04-01National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program award winner
Conferences
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Presented original research at the Southern Sociological Society (SSS), Annual Meeting.
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Presented original research at the Midwest Criminal Justice Association (MCJA), Annual Meeting.
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Sat on panel speaking on black activism and resistance at the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport (NASSS), Annual Meeting
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Presented original research at the Eastern Sociological Society (ESS), Annual Meeting.
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