E. Bennett Jones

E. Bennett Jones is a Ph.D. candidate in U.S. history at Northwestern University. She specializes in the eighteenth and nineteenth century history of science. Her dissertation, “The Indians Say: Settler Colonialism and the Scientific Study of Animals in America, 1722 to 1860,” explores the use of storytelling in early American natural history. Bennett is also a fellow in the Science in Human Culture interdisciplinary cluster and Native American and Indigenous Studies interdisciplinary cluster.

She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Fiber and Material Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago as well as a Master of Arts in Museum Studies from the University of Florida and was a participant in the four-week Summer Institute of Museum Anthropology at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. While at the University of Florida, she completed a master’s thesis titled “Monarch of the Plains: Federalism and Ecology in 19th Century American Museum Habitat Groups.”

Bennett's research interests include the history natural history, animal studies, indigenous studies, and the visualization of knowledge. Because her research focuses on issues of truth and epistemology, Bennett also researches scientific controversies, pseudo-science, para-science, and conflicting ways of producing knowledge. At SAIC, she teaches a U.S. history course titled "Halloween Studies 101," which explores U.S. history through the lens of the occult or paranormal.