Background
Tanisha C. Ford is a native of a mid-sized Midwestern city. She wrote and illustrated her first story when she was seven years old. This experience awakened in her a passion for storytelling and for black worldmaking.
1991
Tanisha C. Ford with her mother in 1991.
University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, United States
The University of Wisconsin-Madison where Tanisha C. Ford received her Master of Arts degree.
107 S Indiana Ave, Bloomington, IN 47405, United States
Indiana University Bloomington where Tanisha C. Ford received her Doctor of Philosophy degree.
Tanisha C. Ford
Tanisha C. Ford
Tanisha C. Ford at the episode of Left of Black on The Root.
Tanisha C. Ford at the Radcliffe Institute.
Tanisha C. Ford
Tanisha C. Ford at the record of the audiobook Dressed in Dreams.
Tanisha C. Ford with her book Dressed in Dreams.
Tanisha C. Ford
Tanisha C. Ford
Tanisha C. Ford
Tanisha C. Ford
Tanisha C. Ford as a five-year-old child with her doll.
Twenty-one-year-old Tanisha C. Ford with her doll.
Tanisha C. Ford at grad school, ca. 2004.
Tanisha C. Ford in her childhood.
Tanisha C. Ford
Tanisha C. Ford
Tanisha C. Ford's mother, ca. 1984.
Tanisha C. Ford with her dad.
(From the civil rights and Black Power era of the 1960s th...)
From the civil rights and Black Power era of the 1960s through anti-apartheid activism in the 1980s and beyond, black women have used their clothing, hair, and style not simply as a fashion statement but as a powerful tool of resistance. In this thought-provoking book, Tanisha C. Ford explores how and why black women in places as far-flung as New York City, Atlanta, London, and Johannesburg incorporated style and beauty culture into their activism. Focusing on the emergence of the "soul style" movement - represented in clothing, jewelry, hairstyles, and more - Liberated Threads shows that black women's fashion choices became galvanizing symbols of gender and political liberation.
https://www.amazon.com/Liberated-Threads-Politics-American-Culture-ebook/dp/B00W1VH2UC/?tag=2022091-20
2015
(In the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, Kwame Brathwa...)
In the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, Kwame Brathwaite used his photography to popularize the political slogan “Black Is Beautiful.” This monograph - the first ever dedicated to Brathwaite’s remarkable career - tells the story of a key, but under-recognized, a figure of the second Harlem Renaissance. From stunning studio portraits of the Grandassa Models to behind-the-scenes images of Harlem’s artistic community, including Max Roach, Abbey Lincoln, and Miles Davis, this book offers a long-overdue exploration of Brathwaite’s life and work.
https://www.amazon.com/Kwame-Brathwaite-Beautiful-Tanisha-Ford/dp/159711443X/?tag=2022091-20
2019
(In this highly engaging book, fashionista and pop culture...)
In this highly engaging book, fashionista and pop culture expert Tanisha C. Ford investigates Afros and dashikis, go-go boots and hotpants of the sixties, hip hop's baggy jeans and bamboo earrings, and the #BlackLivesMatter-inspired hoodies of today. Ford talks about the pain of seeing black style appropriated by the mainstream fashion industry and fashion’s power, especially in middle America. In this richly evocative narrative, she shares her lifelong fashion revolution - from figuring out her own personal style to discovering what makes Midwestern fashion a real thing too.
https://www.amazon.com/Dressed-Dreams-Black-Letter-Fashion/dp/1250173531/?tag=2022091-20
2019
Tanisha C. Ford is a native of a mid-sized Midwestern city. She wrote and illustrated her first story when she was seven years old. This experience awakened in her a passion for storytelling and for black worldmaking.
In college, Tanisha C. Ford chose to major in English Literature and Africana Studies. She learned to appreciate the intellectual gymnastics of post-colonial theory. She studied modern dance and performed with a traveling dance company. But, more than anything, she came to see how her jazz-loving father and dress-designing mother gave her the gift of the arts, grounding her in a sense of self and community, long before she stepped on campus.
After college, she graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2005 with a Master of Arts degree in Afro-American history. Then, in 2011 Tanisha received a Doctor of Philosophy degree in United States history at Indiana University Bloomington.
Before getting a job as a professor, Tanisha C. Ford's worked at Emory University Rollins School of Public Health as an assistant director of Academic Programs, at OAH Magazine of History as an assistant editor, and at the University of Michigan. In 2012, after receiving a doctoral degree, she took the position of an Assistant Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. In 2016, she became an Associate Professor of Africana Studies & History at the University of Delaware.
Tanisha is also a co-founder of TEXTURES, a pop-up material culture lab creating and curating content on bodies and the built environment. Her commitment to social justice and communities of color is evident in everything she produces. Her work centers on social movement history, feminism, material culture, the built environment, black life in the Rust Belt, girlhood studies, and fashion, beauty, and body politics. She makes connections between the past and the present in ways that shed refreshing new light on contemporary cultural and political issues.
Tanisha is the author of three books: Dressed in Dreams: A Black Girl’s Love Letter to the Power of Fashion (June 2019), Kwame Brathwaite: Black is Beautiful (May 2019), and Liberated Threads: Black Women, Style, and the Global Politics of Soul (2015), which narrates the powerful intertwining histories of the Black Freedom movement and the rise of the global fashion industry. Her writing and cultural commentary have been featured in diverse media outlets including the New York Times, the Atlantic, ELLE.com, The Root, Aperture, The Feminist Wire, Cognoscenti, the New Yorker, Ebony, NPR: Code Switch, Fusion, News One, New York Magazine: The Cut, Yahoo! Style, Vibe Vixen, CBSNews, WNYC, and New York City’s HOT 97.
A dynamic speaker, Tanisha is regularly invited to give lectures and serve as a roundtable discussant at universities and cultural institutions around the world including: the Brooklyn Museum, the Apollo Theater, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Museum of the City of New York, the Institute of Contemporary Art (Boston), National Arts Club, Parsons New School for Design, Ritsumeikan University (Japan), the Black Europe Summer School (Netherlands), and the University of London.
She's currently hard at work on a new book, tentatively titled The Glamorous Life: Socialite-Activists and the Black Freedom Struggle from World War II to the Age of Obama, that looks at the women who were instrumental in raising millions of dollars for Black Freedom movement organizations and causes.
(From the civil rights and Black Power era of the 1960s th...)
2015(In the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, Kwame Brathwa...)
2019(In this highly engaging book, fashionista and pop culture...)
2019Tanisha C. Ford's love of creative writing and analyzing the cultures that animate the world has never died. Her favorite histories and stories to tell are those of complicated women, particularly those who lived through the tumultuous social movements of the mid-twentieth century. She cares deeply about engaging directly with black and brown communities, primarily in the United States but also in other parts of the African Diaspora. She enjoys working with families, communities, and organizations to document, archive, and curate local histories. She also uses her resources to aid in social justice efforts on the ground in those communities.