Posted inArticles Issue 15 2026
About Amy M Cools
Amy M Cools is a Research Fellow in English and Creative Writing at Northumbria University, Newcastle, as a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow (2023-2026). Her postdoctoral project is to identify, compile, and edit the complete works of Dr James McCune Smith (1813-1865), an intellectual and activist best known for being the first African American to practice medicine in the United States with a medical degree. She is also writing his biography.
Amy specializes in the history of ideas, special subjects in African American and United States history (especially antebellum), the study of civil rights movements, biographical explorations of extraordinary people, the history of philosophy, and other topics in history, philosophy, and intellectual history. Amy holds a PhD in History (2021) and an MA in Intellectual History (2018) from the University of Edinburgh; and a BA in Philosophy: Ethics, Politics and Law from California State University at Sacramento (2013).