Tamara J. Walker

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 (under contract, University of Texas Press), 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 offers courses on topics such as Afro-Latin American Art, Afro-Latin American History and Culture, and Gender and Slavery Latin America.

In addition to her scholarly pursuits, Tamara 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 the author of Beyond the Shores: A History of African Americans Abroad (forthcoming with Crown, June 2023); and co-hosts a podcast, Why We Wander, which covers all things travel.