"American Madness: Virgin Lands, National Parks and Colonial Myths" interrogates the historical weaponization of “virginity” as a narrative tool that has enabled and exacerbated territorial expansion within and outside of the contiguous United States. Using the Virgin Islands National Park--a conservation site located on the island of St. John in the American territory of the United States Virgin Islands--as a case study, this talk explores how myths about land, places and people function to normalize U.S. empire and its attendant illogics–including that of dispossession and political disenfranchisement.

Dr. Jessica S. Samuel is an educator, interdisciplinary scholar, and decolonial activist whose work focuses on race, education, colonialism and the environment, including where they all might converge, in the United States and Caribbean. She is the founder & CEO of Radical Education & Advocacy League, LLC (REAL), a decolonial education organization focused on helping BIPOC students thrive, rather than just survive. Her work has been supported by the Social Welfare History Project, Mellon Foundation, Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, and Social Science Research Council. Her writing has appeared in publications such as Environmental History Now, Environment & History, and the History Workshop Online. Dr. Samuel holds a PhD in American Studies from Boston University, a Master of Education from the University of Missouri-St. Louis, and a double Bachelors in African American Studies and Anthropology from Wesleyan University. Currently, Dr. Samuel has an appointment as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of African & African American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis where she is working on her first book manuscript entitled Possessive Conservation: How American Myths Haunt Educational Aims on St. John. Dr. Samuel is a recipient of Wash U's 2025 Maya Angelou Postdoctoral Award for Excellence in Leadership.

Livestream: tinyurl.com/CLAS042525