Associate Professor
Professor Berg’s research focuses on the history and literature of social movements with an emphasis on race, class, gender and sexuality. Her publications include the book Mothering the Race: Women’s Narratives of Reproduction, 1890-1930, which examines how early twentieth century African American and white women writers defined and deployed motherhood as a political identity central to racial uplift, feminist, birth control and eugenics movements.
She has also published many articles on topics including the Civil Rights movement, the Harlem Renaissance, multicultural pedagogy, feminism and film. Her article “Trauma and Testimony in Black Women’s Civil Rights Memoirs” was published in the Journal of Women’s History. Professor Berg teaches courses including MC 281: “Immigrants, Minorities and American Pluralism”; MC 368: “The Civil Rights Movement and its Legacies”; and MC 498: “The History and Future of Modern Feminism.” She is the former director of the James Madison Reading and Writing Center, formerly the JMC Writing Consultancy, and also served as James Madison’s Faculty Excellence advocate. In the latter role, she worked with faculty from across the university to advance core values of diversity, equity and inclusion.