Jesús Ruiz

Jesús Ruiz (email)

Dr. Jesús G. Ruiz is an Assistant Professor of the Practice in Caribbean Studies. He also serves as both the Director of CLACX’s Caribbean Studies Minor and Coordinator of the Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowships, as well as the Simon Collier Summer Awards.

He received his Ph.D. in Latin American Studies from Tulane University in New Orleans, LA and was previously an American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Emerging Voices Postdoctoral Fellow at Duke University (2020–2021) and a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Collaborative Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow in American Studies at Vanderbilt.

A historian of Latin America and the Caribbean, Dr. Ruiz’s research explores slavery, freedom, and Black political thought in the Atlantic World. His first book, The Black Royalists: Haiti and A Politics of Freedom in the Atlantic World (under contract with Harvard University Press), examines the politics of royalism among both ordinary Haitians and those who became Haitian royalty during the struggle for independence. His work reframes royalism as a transcultural political phenomenon, offering new insights into the Haitian Revolution and the evolution of Black political thought during the Age of Revolutions.

His scholarship appears in Slavery & Abolition: A Journal of Slave and Post-Slave Studies, including his recent article, “Freedom, Faith & Sovereignty: The 1796 Boca Nigua Revolt as an Afro-Catholic Royalist Rebellion” (March 2025). His public-facing writing has been featured in The Washington Post, and he has contributed book reviews to The Bulletin of Latin American Research, H-France Forum, and H-Haiti. He has received numerous awards, including the Edward H. Moseley Award from the Southeastern Council of Latin American Studies (SECOLAS) and teaching honors such as Tulane’s William J. Griffith Teaching Award and Vanderbilt’s Maestrx Award for excellence in teaching.

At Vanderbilt, Dr. Ruiz teaches courses on Afro-Latin America, Migration & Asylum in the Americas, and Caribbean studies. He was recently appointed Faculty Head of Moore College within Vanderbilt’s Residential Colleges & Residential Education and will begin his term in Summer 2025. He is also an affiliated faculty member in the Program in Culture, Advocacy, and Leadership (CAL).

In Spring 2025, he organized CLACX’s inaugural Caribbean Week, collaborating with local HBCU’s, the Frist Art Museum, VU Student Organizations, and internationally renowned artists. CLACX’s Caribbean Week secured two major Vanderbilt grants: the Big Questions Fund from the Office of the Vice Provost for Arts, Libraries & Global Engagement and a Community Engagement Collaboration Fund from the Division of Government and Community Relations

Dr. Ruiz’s research has been supported by the Ford Foundation, Fulbright Program, Schomburg Center, John Carter Brown Library, Afro-Latin American Research Institute at Harvard University, and the Omohundro Institute of Early American History, among others.

A first-generation U.S. citizen born in Los Angeles, CA, to parents from Sonora, Mexico, Dr. Ruiz was raised in Arizona and became the first in his family to attend college. He earned a B.A. in Spanish with Honors from St. Lawrence University and an M.A. in Caribbean Studies from the University at Buffalo (SUNY) as an Arturo A. Schomburg Fellow.