EDUCATION
Ph.D. Speech Communication, Concentrations in African American Studies and African Studies, Indiana University, Bloomington
M.A. Speech Communication, Wake Forest University
B.A. Theater, Xavier University, New Orleans
PUBLICATIONS
Essays, Articles, Interviews
Adapting Richard Wright for Stage and Screen. A Special Issue of Palimpsest: A Journal of Women, Gender, and the Black Diaspora 12.1 (2023). Co-edited with Tara T. Green.
"Redeeming Bigger Thomas: Rashid Johnson and Suzan-Lori Parks' 'Woke" Native Son." Palimpsest: A Journal of Women, Gender, and the Black Diaspora" 12.1 (2023): 99-113.
"George Wolfe." In 50 Key Figures in Queer US Theatre, eds. Jimmy A. Noriega and Jordan Schildcrout (NY: Routledge, 2023): 238-242.
"The Legacy of Essex Hemphill." The Reckoning. 21 June 2022.
" 'Professor, Are You Sure?': Teaching While Black at a Select Liberal Arts College." Public Seminar 28 April, 2022.
"Screening Intimacy, Vulnerability, and Sensitivity Between Black Men: An Interview with Rodney Evans." Black Camera: An International Film Journal 14.1 (Fall 2022): 159-173.
“No Crips Allowed: The Hyper-Abled Black Male Body in Steven Spielberg’s Amistad and Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther." College Language Association Journal, Special Issue on Blackness and Disability Studies 64.1 (2021): 52-61.
“‘A New Dawn, A New Day’: Welcoming a Golden Age of Black Quare/Queer Male Life Studies.” Palimpsest: A Journal on Women, Gender, and the Black Diaspora, Special Issue on 30 Year Retrospective of Black Queer Studies, ed. Terence Dean 9.2 (2020): 1-4.
“Differently Black: The Fourth Great Migration and Black Catholic Saints in Ramin Bahrani’s Goodbye Solo and Jim Sheridan’s In America." In Migrating the Black Body: The African Diaspora and Visual Culture, ed. Leigh Raiford and Heike Raphael-Hernandez (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2017): 207- 220.
“What’s Nat Turner Doing Up in Here With All These Queers: Paul Outlaw’s Berserker; A Meditation on Interracial Desire and Disappearing Blackness. In Blacktino Queer Performance, eds. E. Patrick Johnson and Ramon Rivera-Servera (Durham: Duke University Press, 2016): 486-497.
“Documenting the Intersection of Race, Sexuality, and Faith: An Interview with Yoruba Richen,” Journal of Black Studies 45.1 (2015): 72-80.
“The Souls of Black Gay Folk: The Black Arts Movement and Melvin Dixon’s Revision of Du Boisian Double Consciousness in Vanishing Rooms. In Black Intersectionalities: A Critique for the 21st Century, eds. Monica Michlin and Jean-Paul Rocchi (Liverpool University Press, 2013): 114-126.
“Reading Will Make You Queer: Gender Inversion and Racial Leadership in Claude McKay’s Home to Harlem.” Palimpsest: A Journal on Women, Gender, and the Black International 2.1 (2013): 64-86.
“Drag Performance and Community Building in Cuba and the United States,” FORECAAST (Forum for European Contributions to African American Studies), 16 (2007): 83-94. Co-authored with Baltasar Fra-Molinero.
“When Food Tastes Cosmopolitan: The Creole Fusion of Diaspora Cuisine; An Interview with Jessica B. Harris.” Callaloo 30:1 (2007): 287-303. Co-authored with Baltasar Fra-Molinero.
“Langston Hughes, the Female Gospel Voice and the Broadway Musical Comedy.” In Eileen Hayes and Linda Williams, More Than the Blues: Black Women and Music (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2007): 72-89.
“Queering The Souls of Black Folk.” Public Culture 17:2 (2005): 255-276.
"Why Are Gay Ghettos White?” In Black Queer Studies: A Critical Anthology, eds. E. Patrick Johnson and Mae G. Henderson (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2005): 228-248. Reprinted in Intersectionality: A Foundations and Frontiers Reader, ed. Patrick R. Grzanka (New York and London: Routledge, 2014): 110-119.
“Diva Traffic and Male Bonding in Film: Teaching Opera, Learning Gender, Race, and Nation.” Camera Obscura: Feminism, Media, and Cultural Studies 19(2004): 47-74.
“Black Gay Men and White Gay Men: A Less than Perfect Union.” In Out in the South, eds. Carlos L. Dews and Carolyn Leste Law (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2001): 115-126.
“Fixing Ceremonies: An Introduction.” Ceremonies. By Essex Hemphill. SanFrancisco: Cleis Press, 2000. xi-xxiii
"Re/Membering Langston: Homophobic Textuality and Arnold Rampersad's The Life of Langston Hughes." In Queer Representations: Reading Lives, Reading Cultures; A Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader, ed. Martin Bauml Duberman (New York: New York University Press 1997): 188-196.
“‘Oh, What I Think I Must Tell This World’: Oratory and Public Address of African American Women.” In Black Women in America, ed. Kim Vaz (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications 1995): 261-275.
"Social and Cultural Sensitivity in Group Specific HIV/AIDS Programming." Journal of Counseling and Development 71 (January/February 1993), pp. 290-297. Coauthors: James M. Croteau and Diane J. Prosser.
"Race, Gender and Sexual Orientation in the HIV/AIDS Epidemic: Evaluating an Intervention for Leaders of Diverse Communities." Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development 20 (October, 1992), pp. 161-180. Co-authors: JimCroteau, Susanne Morgan, and Bruce Henderson.
"Free Speech or Hate Speech?: Pornography and Its Means of Production." Law and Sexuality: A Review of Lesbian and Gay Legal Issues 2 (1992), pp. 3-9.
“Clarence Pendleton and the Rhetoric of Paradox.” The Howard Journal of Communications 3 (Winter/Spring 1992), pp. 204-217.
"Black Queer Identity, Imaginative Rationality, and the Language of Home." In Alberto Gonzalez, Marsha Houston, and Victoria Chen (eds.), Our Voices: Essays in Culture, Ethnicity, and Communication. Los Angeles, CA: Roxbury Press, 1993, pp. 54-60.
“Towards a Black Gay Aesthetic: Signifying in Contemporary Black Gay Literature.” In Joseph Beam and Essex Hemphill (eds.), Brother to Brother: New Writings by Black Gay Men. Boston: Alyson Publications, 1991, pp. 229-252. This essay has been reprinted in Devon Carbado (ed.), Black Men on Race, Gender, and Sexuality (New York UP, 1999); Mel Donaldson (ed.), Cornerstones (St. Martin’s Press 1996); Hazel Arnett Ervin (ed.), African American Literary Criticism--1773 to Present (Twayne Publishers, 1999); Patricia Liggins Hill (gen. ed.), Call and Response: The Riverside Anthology of the African American Literary Tradition (MacMillan Press, 1998); Winston Napier (ed.), African American Literary Theory (New York U P, 2000).
Public Scholarship: Reviews, Encyclopedia Entries, Scholarly Notes, Pamphlets, Advising
Advisory Committee, "The Phillips Collection Presents Essex Hemphill: Take Care of Your Blessings," Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C., 17 May-31 August, 2025.
Review: Nobody’s Supposed to Know: Black Sexuality on the Down Low by Riley Snorton. QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking, 3.1 (Spring 2016): 157-159.
The New Black, directed by Yoruba Richen: A Film Review. The Journal of Black Studies, 45.1 (2015): 70-71.
Editor, A Heavy Grace: An Interview with Daniel Minter, Bates College, Office of Multicultural Affairs, February 2005. http://cms-content.bates.edu/prebuilt/heavygrace.pdf
“Teaching Boys Don’t Cry,” Radical Teacher: A Socialist, Feminist, and Anti-Racist Journal on the Theory and Practice of Teaching. 67(Spring 2003): 43-44.
Gay Rebel of the Harlem Renaissance: Selections from the Work of Bruce Nugent. The Journal of the History of Sexuality 12.4 (October 2003): 672-676.
"Wonder and Delight." A Review of Black Like Us: A Century of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Fiction by Devon W. Carbado, Dwight A. McBride, and Donald Weise. Lambda Book Report (Nov/Dec2002): 25-26.
"Gay Literature" and "Gay Men," The Oxford Companion to African American Literature, ed, William L. Andrews, Frances Smith Foster, and Trudier Harris. Oxford UP, 1998, p. 212-213.
Spirits in the Dark (Novel) by H. Nigel Thomas. Lambda Book Review (January/February 1995), p. 47.
Soul Make a Path Through Shouting (Poetry) by Cyrus Cassells. Lambda Book Review (July/August 1994), p. 45.
Sorrow Is the Only Faithful One: The Life of Owen Dodson by James V. Hatch. Bates: The Alumni Magazine, Winter 1994, pp. 42-43.
Prologue: The Novels of Black American Women, 1891-1965 by Carole McAlpine Watson. Women's Studies in Indiana, 12, (November 1986), p. 3.
SELECTED INVITED LECTURES
Black History Month Keynote Presentation: "Bayard Rustin on Screen: Using Intersectionality To Retell the Civil Rights Movement," University of Houston, 1 February, 2024.
"Spike Lee's BlacKKKlansman." Cinema in Conversation, Maine Film Center (Zoom), 3 February 2021.
"BlacKKKlansman: Spike Lee Turns the Interracial Buddy Film Upside Down.” University of Maine at Farmington Symposium on Spike Lee’s BlacKKKlansman, 9 February 2019.
“The Biblical Queen Esther and Black Quare Studies,” Sweet Tea Turns Ten: A Symposium Celebrating the Tenth Anniversary of Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South; An Oral History, 19-20 October, 2018.
“Gender Inversion and Claude McKay’s Home to Harlem,” Sex in the 21st Century Symposium, Vanderbilt University African American and Diaspora Studies Program, 22 March, 2012
“Queer Double Consciousness and the Literature of the Harlem Renaissance,” Keynote Address, Celebrating African American Literature Conference, Pennsylvania State University, Departments of African American Studies and English, 1 October 2011.
"Tongues Untied: A History of Black Gay Writing," Black Gay Research Summit, Brooklyn, New York, August 2005.
"Langston Hughes and the Gospel Musical," National Black Theater Festival Colloquium, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, August 2005.
"Queering The Souls of Black Folk," 100 Years of The Souls of Black Folk: A Conference Sponsored by Northwestern University’s Alice Berline Kaplan Center for the Humanities and African American Studies Department, 2004, Oct. 23-25.
"The Politics of Home in Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun," National Black Theater Festival, August 2003.
Participant. "Ethnic Notions: A Symposium on White Identity and Racial Stereotyping." Texas A & M University, 21 February 2002.
"Black Gay Life Writing," Fire and Ink: A Writer’s Festival for GLBT People of African Descent," University of Illinois—Chicago, 19-22 September, 2002.
"Whoopi Messiah: Whoopi Goldberg in Sister Act." Presented at the Makin’ Whoopi Symposium, Bates College. 19-20 May, 2000.
"Why Are the Gay Ghettoes White?: A Hypothesis about the Function of The Black Gay Impostor as Controlling Image in White Gay Discourse." Black Queer Studies in the Millennium Conference. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 7-9 April, 2000.
"The Frustrated Queens in Bebe Moore Campbell’s Brothers and Sisters." ‘The Endlessly Beckoning Horizon’: Afro-American Literature at the End of the Twentieth Century. The University of Pennsylvania, September 30-October 2, 1999.
SELECTED CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
"Representing the Race: Queer Images of Blackness," Black Queer Studies Conference 25th Anniversary, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 4-6 April 2025.
"Black Gay Man in Paris: The Travel Diaries of Melvin W. Dixon," 14 International Meeting of the Collegium for African American Research, Humboldt University, Berlin Germany, 20-22 March 2025.
"Homo-Bonding in the Submerged Tenth: W.E.B. DuBois's The Philadelphia Negro and Claude McKay's Home to Harlem," Annual Meeting of the College Language Association, Atlanta, Georgia, 5-8 April, 2023.
"Afro-Futurist Masculinity (?): Bigger Thomas as a Black Dandy in Rashid Johnson's Native Son, Annual Meeting of the College Language Association, Memphis, Tennessee, 8-10 April, 2021.
“The Super Human Black Male Body: Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther and Steven Spielberg’s Amistad.” Annual Meeting of the College Language Association, Durham, North Carolina, 10-13 April, 2019.
“Hyper-ability and Blackness: Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther. 13th International Meeting of the Collegium of African American Research, University of Southern Florida at Orlando, 30 January-2 February, 2019.
Panelist, “When ‘Home’ Is a Four-Letter Word: Black Queer Studies Then and Now,” Annual Meeting of the American Studies Association, Denver, Colorado 17-20 November 2017.
What’s Nat Turner Doing Up In Here With All These Queers?: Paul Outlaw’s Berserker; A Black Gay Meditation Upon Interracial Desire,” Annual Meeting of the American Studies Association, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 15-18 November, 2012.
White Redemption and Indie Cinema: The West African Migrant to America as Christian Black Saint in Rahmin Bahrani’s Goodbye Solo (2009) and Jim Sheridan’s In America (2002). Diasporas and Race Symposium, Wake Forest University (USA), 7 October, 2012.
“Screening Uncle Tom’s Cabin in Germany: Liberation Theology in Géza von Radványi’s 1965 Onkel Toms Hütte,” Harriet Beecher Stowe at 200, Harriet Beecher Stowe Society, Bowdoin College, 23-25 June 2011.
“The Souls of Black Gay Folk: The Black Arts Movement and Melvin Dixon’s Revision of Du Boisian Double Consciousness in Vanishing Rooms, Black States of Desire: Dispossession, Circulation, Transformation,” Collegium on African American Research, University of Paris, France. 6-9 April 2011.
“Gay Black Consciousness and the Black Arts Movement Aesthetic in Melvin Dixon’s Vanishing Rooms,” Art and Power in Movement: An International Conference on Rethinking the Black Power and Arts Movements,” University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 18-20 November 2010.
“The Democracy of Sin Theme in the Novels of E. Lynn Harris,” Annual Meeting of the College Language Association, Miami, Florida, May 2007.
"Stephen Speilberg’s Amistad, The Black Buck Stereotype and the Christian Black Magus Image," Annual Meeting of the College Language Association, University of Georgia, Athens, April 2005.
"The Incorruptible Body of the Black Gift-Bearer: Djimon Hounsou," Annual Meeting of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, London, England, April 2005.
"Lessons in Race and Nation: Teaching Opera in Philadelphia, Shawshank Redemption, and Frese y Chocolate." Annual Meeting of the College Language Association. April, 2001.
"Evading History: Biracial Male Bonding and Operatic Tutelage in Film," Real to Reel: Black Life in Cinema Conference," Department of African American Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 5-7 April, 2001.
"Respondent." Engaging Ourselves: Interrogating, Exploring, and Revisting Cool Pose. National Communication Association Convention. 10 November, 2000.
"Black Gay Literatures and African American Studies." First Colloquium, Gay and Lesbian Studies in Southern Africa. University of Cape Town, South Africa. October, 1995.
"Voice and Gender in Booker T. Washington's Atlanta Exposition Address." Annual Meeting of the Speech Communication Association, New Orleans, LA. November, 1994.
"Reconstructing Manhood: Tongues Untied, AIDS and the Afro-Gay Jeremiad." Annual Meeting of the Modern Language Association, Toronto, Canada. Dec. 1993.
"Toussaint's Daughters: Black Women Playwrights and the Haitian Revolution." Presented at Text and Presentation XVII, Comparative Drama Conference, University of Florida. March 1992.
"Problematic Heroism: Psychopathic Discourse and Toni Morrison's Soaphead Church and Black men of the Sweet Home Plantation." Presented at the annual meeting of the Southern Humanities Council, Chattanooga, TN. February, 1991.
"Clarence Pendleton and the Rhetoric of Paradox." Presented at the annual meeting of the Speech Communication Association, Chicago, IL. November, 1990.
"Post-Black Power and Stonewall Literature by Black Gay Men." Presented at the Fourth Annual Lesbian, Bisexual and Gay Studies Conference, Harvard University. October 1990.
"Colonel North Goes to Washington: Public Narrative in the Iran/Contra Hearings." (Top Three: Political Communication). Presented at the annual meeting of the Eastern Communication Association, Baltimore, MD. May, 1988.
"‘There Can Be No Progress Without Peace’: W.E.B. DuBois and the 1950 Campaign for the United States Senate." Presented at the annual meeting of the Speech Communication Association, Boston, MA. November, 1987.
"From Slaves to Rulers: Four Writers View the Haitian Revolution." Presented at the Second Conference on The Legacy of Colonialism: Focus on The Caribbean and the Americas, The Afro-American Studies Center of Purdue University, IN. March, 1987.
SELECTED HONORS AND AWARDS
Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies Fellowship (1993-94)
Schomburg Fellowship (2005-2006)
SELECTED ACADEMIC AND COMMUNITY SERVICE
Bates College
Search Committees--Director of Debate, Assistant Professor of Classical and Medieval Studies, and Assistant Professor of Africana & Digital and Media Studies (2024-25)
Search Committee, Vice President for Academic Affairs, Bates College, 2025.
Co-Chair, Inauguration Program Committee for the 9th President of Bates College, 2023
Search Committee for Recruiting, Selecting, and Appointing the 9th President of Bates College, 2022-23
Guest Speaker, Lavender Graduation Sponsored by SPARQ Peer Mentors, Office of Intercultural Education, April 13, 2023
Panelist, Africana Club Conference, "Being African and Embracing Africa," March 4, 2023.
Faculty Personnel Committee (2022-2025)
Committee on Personnel (Replacement, 2021-22)
Mellon Curriculum Transformation Grant Committee (2018-20)
Interim Chair, Africana, 2019-2020
Member of the Internal Review Committee for the Politics Department, 2018
Search Committee for Assistant Professor of Theater and Dance (2017)
Martin Luther King, Jr. Planning Committee, 1996- 2016 (Chair, 1996-2005, 2012-2016)
Chair, African American Studies, 1992-2000, 2008-12; Committee Member 1992-Present
Member, Bates Finance Advisory Committee, 2006-2009
External Institutional Service
External Reviewer, Africana Department at Hamilton College (2020)
External Reviewer, Communication, Film, and Theater Department at Allegheny College (2008)
Member of the Executive Board, Collegium of African American Research, 2018-2025
Member of the Editorial Board, The James Baldwin Review (Manchester University Press)
Memberships in Modern Language Association, College Language Association, Collegium of African American Research
Community Service
Maine Community Foundation, Androscoggin County Advisor, 2022-
Juneteenth Commemoration Planning Committee, Southern Maine, 2022-2023