Eshe Sherley

This interview was conducted with Eshe Sherley at 112 Union Street in Hudson, NY, where she wasstaying during her participation in Oral History Summer School, on June 24,2025. Sherley discusses her current hobbies, listening to music and gardening,and her past hobbies, MMA and rugby. Sherley describes her time on the YaleWomen’s Rugby team, including the team’s social dynamics related to race and queerness, her relationship to her leadership role on the team, and her relationship to athletics in general. Sherley goes on to talk about her current friendships, many of which are long distance. Sherley then discusses her love of live music, particularly soul/jazz/R&B. Sherley also talks about moving often in her adult life, and her desire to balance her career as an academic with her commitment to finding a place to settle. She goes on to describe her feelings about being a historian and academic, and her thinking about her own ambivalence about the structures of academia. Sherley ends the interview by describing her hopes for the future—to live closer to friends, close to nature, in an affordable city, with a job that allows her to do the work she values—and describes how that lifestyle is currently imperiled. She imagines a version of academia that gives people the tools to build a better world.

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