Keidrick Roy
Dr. Keidrick Roy is a new assistant professor of government at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.
At the Ivy League school, he teaches classes on the history of American political thought and researches the advancement of key concepts, including the Enlightenment, liberalism, nationalism and conservatism. Roy is also author of the award-winning book “American Dark Age: Racial Feudalism and the Rise of Black Liberalism,” a study on how the racial system of social stratification in the United States functions as an extension of medieval ideas. His interdisciplinary work foregrounds African American intellectual traditions in rethinking ongoing debates about patriotism, religion and civic optimism.
Roy has written scholarly articles for Modern Intellectual History, New Literary History, English Literary History, American Political Thought and other publications. Also, he is a coauthor of “Smithsonian American: The Atlas,” published in 2023 by Thunder Bay Press. His contributions to educating and highlighting issues of racial injustice have gained him national attention on outlets such as CBS Sunday Morning and an appearance in the 2022 HBO documentary “Frederick Douglass: In Five Speeches.”
Before joining Dartmouth College, Roy served in the U.S. Air Force as an English instructor at the Air Force Academy and is a former Air Force nuclear operations officer. He earned his doctorate degree in American Studies, Intellectual History & Political Theory from Harvard University in 2022 and was elected to the Harvard Society of Fellows, where he remained until joining Dartmouth College. His dissertation, “Jefferson’s Map, Douglass’s Territory: The Black Reconstruction of Enlightenment in America, 1773-1865,” won Harvard’s DeLancey K. Jay Prize for the best work throughout the university as well as Harvard’s Helen Choate Bell Prize for best dissertation in any subject of American literature.
Roy is dedicated to museum curation and documentary filmmaking to encourage people to participate in reflection and dialogue. He was curator and project lead for Dark Testament, an exhibition at the American Writers Museum in Chicago that connects the writings of African Americans from the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement in conversation with contemporary Black writers and thinkers. He also served as an exhibition curator for Frederick Douglass’ writings and speeches and is an executive producer of “We Are Here Too,” a documentary film on race and art during the pandemic featured in the 2023 SR: Socially Relevant Film Festival in New York City.
