mit political science department :: melissa noblesweb.mit.edu/cortiz/www/diversity/nobles.pdfmit...

MIT Political Science Department :: Melissa Nobles

Melissa Nobles

Melissa Nobles is Associate

Professor of Political Science.

Professor Nobles’ teaching

and research interests are in

the comparative study of

racial and ethnic politics, and

issues of retrospective

justice. Her book, Shades of

Citizenship: Race and the

Census in Modern Politics

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Curriculum Vitae (2/07, pdf)

http://web.mit.edu/polisci/faculty/M.Nobles.html (1 of 4)12/7/2007 3:44:17 PM

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(Stanford University Press,

2000), examines the political

origins and consequences of

racial categorization in

demographic censuses in the

United States and Brazil.

The Politics of Official

Apologies, (forthcoming,

Cambridge University Press),

comparatively examines the

political uses of official

apologies in Australia,

Canada, New Zealand, and

the United States. It

explores why minority

groups demand such

apologies and why

governments give them (or

not). She argues that official

apologies are tactics used in

larger political strategies to

alter the terms and

meanings of political

membership. The power of

apologies, and what

distinguishes them from

other tactics, is their ability

to publicly ratify certain

reinterpretations of history

and to introduce

expectations about what

acknowledgment of that

history requires.

Nobles holds a BA in history

from Brown University and

an MA and PhD in political

science from Yale University.

Shades of Citizenship

received the Outstanding

Book Award for 2001 from

the National Conference of

Black Political Scientists, as



well as an Honorable

Mention for the Ralph Bunch

Book Award from the

American Political Science

Association. Nobles has also

been a Fellow at Boston

University’s Institute on

Race and Social Division

(2000-01) and Harvard

University's Radcliffe Center

for Advanced Study (2003-

04).

Subjects

● 17.516 | syllabus Transitional Justice

● 17.523 Ethnicity and Race in World Politics

● 17.504 Ethnic Politics I

Books

Shades of Citizenship:

Race and the Census in

Modern Politics

Stanford University Press,

2000

more information | reviews


http://student.mit.edu/catalog/search.cgi?search=17.516&style=verbatimhttp://web.mit.edu/polisci/research/mnobles/17516_syllabus_2003.pdfhttp://student.mit.edu/catalog/search.cgi?search=17.523&style=verbatimhttp://student.mit.edu/catalog/search.cgi?search=17.504&style=verbatimhttp://www.sup.org/book.cgi?book_id=4013 4059http://www.sup.org/book.cgi?book_id=4013 4059http://www.sup.org/book.cgi?book_id=4013 4059http://www.sup.org/book.cgi?book_id=4013 4059http://www.sup.org/book.cgi?book_id=4013 4059http://www.sup.org/book.cgi?book_id=4013%204059


Articles

● "Assessing the Effects of International Human Rights on the Emergence of Domestic Official Apologies" (pdf, 324kb, pp. 15)

● "Official Apologies and their Effects on Political Membership in Democracies" (pdf, 333kb, pp. 14)

● "“To Apologize or Not to Apologize?”: Historical Facts and Political Claims in Australia and the United States" (pdf, 263kb, pp. 22)

● "The Other Side of American Exceptionalism: The Comparative Study of Racial Politics" APSA-CP Newsletter, Winter 2004 (pdf, 65kb, pp. 3)

© 2007 MIT Department of Political Science


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