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 (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, (Cambridge University Press, 2008), 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).
The Politics of Official Apologies
Cambridge University Press, 2008
Shades of Citizenship: Race and the Census in Modern Politics
Stanford University Press, 2000
