Dr Nathalie Rech is a Writer, Historian, and Post-doctoral researcher at the University of Liverpool. Nathalie is working on a 2-year research project across the School of Law and Social Justice and the Department of History, in collaboration with Professor Barry Godfrey and Dr Stephen Kenny.
Her research focusses on Black women’s lives at the turn of the 20th century. Her PhD thesis, entitled ‘Locking Up and Exploiting African American Women at Angola State Penitentiary: Experiences of Incarceration in Jim Crow Louisiana’ uncovers the racial and gendered hierarchies at play in a penal farm operating on a former slave plantation. Her post-doctoral research proposes to explore Black women’s interactions with the criminal justice system in Louisiana, Nova Scotia, and the UK over the period 1880-1935, to reveal some of the mechanisms of white supremacy, and document women’s modes of resistance.
Nathalie is the author of the script of ‘Lulu White, Queen of Diamonds,’ a graphic biography of a Black Madam operating in New Orleans red-light district during segregation. She previously had a career in the non-profit sector, advocating on issues of homelessness, poverty, and housing. She is also an interpreter for conferences in the academia and beyond.