Meet Dr. Fletcher

Posted by ehusleto

Written by Student Intern, Pierce Greer

We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Charlene Fletcher (she/her) as an Assistant Professor of History and an Affiliate Faculty in Race, Gender, and Sexuality Studies! Dr. Fletcher earned her Ph.D. in History from Indiana University Bloomington and her Masters in Criminal Justice from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. She also is a Community ScDr. Fletcher sitting in armchair.holar at the Center for Africana Studies and Culture at IUPUI. Dr. Fletcher previously taught at Butler University as an adjunct professor in the Core program and is excited to be back on campus! Dr. Fletcher looks forward to meeting students and engaging them with the course material. She also hopes to expand student’s understanding of public history, offer new perspectives and subjects in history, and have students interact with the Indianapolis community.

Before becoming a professor, Dr. Fletcher worked at various prison systems in New York, New Jersey, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons. She interviewed corrections staff and inmates, including the Son of Sam, David Berkowitz. While not busy with her academic work, Dr. Fletcher enjoys spending time with her daughter and her cat, Kevin.

Areas of Research & Scholarship:

Dr. Fletcher is a historian of the 19th-century United States. She examines how race, crime, gender, and confinement interact during this time. Her scholarship also focuses on the African Diaspora. Her research is interdisciplinary, blending sociology, specifically criminological and social theories, ethnography, politics, and public policy. As a public historian, Dr. Fletcher has worked in museums and with community groups. Her first major project focused on confinement in the southern United States, specifically women in the Kentucky prison system. Her next project will examine race and immigration in the United States through interactions of  African Americans and Sicilian Americans. Her upcoming book, Confined Femininity: Race, Gender, and Incarceration in Kentucky, 1865 – 1920, with Chapel Hill Press, will unpack her discoveries within the Kentucky prison system. 

Upcoming and current Butler courses:

  • HST 335 – The Civil War 
  • TI 204 – Questions in History: Topics in Africana Studies
  • GHS 210 – Freedom & Movement
  • HST 303 – Introduction to Public History
  • She is currently developing courses about sex work and mass incarceration in the United States for the 2024-25 school year.

You can learn more about Dr. Fletcher at her professional site or view her recent lecture, “Conversations in Indiana African American History and Culture.”