Caroline Light

Caroline Light is a senior lecturer and the Director of Undergraduate Studies at Harvard's department of Women Gender and Sexuality. Her research explores histories of citizenship and belonging, and the ways in which white supremacy, (hetero)sexism, and classism shape collective (mis)memory and archival silence. Light's first book, That Pride of Race and Character: the Roots of Jewish Benevolence in the Jim Crow South (NYU Press, 2014) illuminates the experience of southern Jewish assimilation through the lens of benevolent uplift. Stand Your Ground: A History of America’s Love Affair with Lethal Self-Defense (Beacon Press, 2017) provides a critical genealogy of our nation’s ideals of armed citizenship.