Meet the Faculty

Black Studies courses taught:
My courses in the English Department focus on African American/Afro-Caribbean literature and film, as well as Black legal culture in the U.S. In addition to ENG 241 (Intro to Af Am Lit), I regularly teach ENG 315 (Black Feminist Jurisprudence), ENG 360 (Black Supernatural), ENG 468 (Black Rebellions/Revolutions), and another 400-level ENG course with a changing course number that’s entitled The Uncanny Self in Black Fiction and Film. I’ve also started teaching ENG 101, Life Changing Books, which is a quarter-long slow reading of Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved.

 

What top 5 artists/songs would be featured on your mixtape?
Ibeyi, Nina Simone, Doechii, Betty Davis, and Alice Coltrane

 

Do you have a go-to restaurant in Eugene?
I live downtown, so Party Bar and Yardy!

 

What is your favorite pastime?
Well, I’m not beating the nerdy English professor allegations with these, but my favorite pastimes these days are: making art (I’ve been learning watercolor and oil pastel painting), journaling, embroidery, and listening to podcasts in my giant headphones on really long walks.

 

What scholar(s) changed the way you think about your work?
Two of my graduate school advisors shaped my development as a scholar in profound ways. Colin Dayan helped me think about law so much more creatively and expansively after I left my previous career as a lawyer, and Teresa Goddu—in addition to being an incredible scholar of early Black print culture—pushed me to think deeply about the ethics of being a white scholar of Black studies. There are many scholars who have shaped the way I view the entire world, Black studies and Black feminism, and my own scholarly work: Patricia Williams, Karla Holloway, nourbeSe philip, Saidiya Hartman, Lindon Barrett, Hortense Spillers, Hazel Carby, Audre Lorde, Dionne Brand, and on and on. One of the scholars who has most influenced my way of thinking in general is a peer, Petal Samuel, who was in my cohort in graduate school and is consistently one of the most generous, expansive, and original thinkers I have ever met.

 

If you could recommend one Black Studies scholar, book or theory to our minors, what would it be?
Kevin Quashie (The Sovereignty of Quiet and Black Aliveness). I left him off the above list only so I could include him here. He has produced some of the most important and beautifully written scholarship in Black studies in the past few years, and I recommend his work to students all the time particularly as an example of the most elite close reading you’ll ever encounter.

Black Studies courses taught:
ES 250 Introduction to Black Studies, ES 310 Race and Sex in Hip Hop and ES 360 Black Sexual Politics 

 

What top 5 artists/songs would be featured on your mixtape?
That's a tough question, because it could be Top 5 of all time or Top 5 currently in rotation. Off the top of my head, among my all-time Top 5 albums are Ice Cube's Death Certificate, Stevie Wonder's Songs in the Key of Life, Beyonce's Renaissance, Daniel Caeser's Freudian and Cardi B Am I The Drama. Having said that, I feel like I'm neglecting albums I listened to obsessively when I was younger, like Mariah Carey's Butterfly, Mint Condition's From the Mint Factory, Erykah Badu's Mama's Gun, Jill Scott's Who is Jill Scott...This question is too hard. Music is soundtrack of life.

 

Do you have a go-to restaurant in Eugene?
Depends on what I'm craving. If it's soul food, Yardy's has the best fried chicken. Once Famous Grill and Styr's have the best catfish. Davis NW Smokehouse has the best ribs. So many good burger spots in town. Gotcha is yummy and crazy affordable. For pizza you can't beat Bartolotti's (the food cart on Friendly). My favorite Mexican restaurant is El Tapatio in Cottage Grove.

 

What is your favorite pastime?
Watching my kids play sports. It's my greatest pleasure and the biggest pain in my ass.

 

What scholar(s) changed the way you think about your work?
Lawrence Levine's Black Culture and Black Consciousness and Sterling Stuckey's Slave Culture revolutionized how I thought about Black resistance and informed how I wrote my first book Brothers Gonna Work it Out. Fred Moten's work shifted how I conceptualized all-Black spaces in my second book Blacks vs. Brown.

 

If you could recommend one Black Studies scholar, book or theory to our minors, what would it be?
W.E.B. DuBois. His historicizing of/theorizing about Blackness and whiteness continues to be deeply relevant and evidences that old saying, "the more things change, the more they stay the same."

Black Studies courses taught:
ES 250 - Intro to Black Studies and ES 310 - Race, Gender, and Sport.

 

What top 5 artists/songs would be featured on your mixtape?
Yussef Dayes, KAYTRANADA, Cleo Sol, Megan Thee Stallion, and Beyoncé could get me through most of my musical moods.

 

Do you have a go-to restaurant in Eugene?
I love Bar Purlieu and Party Bar.

 

What is your favorite pastime?
Experiencing live music or live sports

 

What scholar(s) changed the way you think about your work?
My work is deeply indebted to sociologist Ben Carrington - he seamlessly blends Black Studies and Sport Studies together in a way that has significantly shaped my research and paved the way for more scholars to publish critical work at the intersection of race and sport.

 

If you could recommend one Black Studies scholar, book or theory to our minors, what would it be?
For me, the most insightful, interesting book on Black creativity published recently has to be KAOS Theory: Afrokosmic Ark of Ben Caldwell by Ben Caldwell and Robeson Taj Frazier. You can hear the authors talk about the project and see some of the art here.

Black Studies courses taught:
Megan The Stallion, Jamila Woods, Janelle Monáe, Rihanna, and Tems

 

What top 5 artists/songs would be featured on your mixtape?
Tonton Sushi

 

Do you have a go-to restaurant in Eugene?
I live downtown, so Party Bar and Yardy!

 

What is your favorite pastime?
Playing video games; especially games like South of Midnight

 

What scholar(s) changed the way you think about your work?
June Jordan, Carmen Kynard, Brittney Cooper, Tressie McMillan Cottom, and Gwendolyn D. Pough

 

If you could recommend one Black Studies scholar, book or theory to our minors, what would it be?
Catherine Knight Steele’s Digital Black Feminism

Black Studies courses taught:
ES 250: Introduction to Black Studies, ES 440/540, version #1: Black Life and the Human/Body, ES 440/540, version #2: Black Health and (Social) Healing and UGST 111: Umoja Black Scholars ARC Seminar

 

What top 5 artists/songs would be featured on your mixtape?
Paramore + Hayley Williams: all of them, can’t pick a fave, Parliament: Mothership Connection (1975), Santigold: Santigold (2008), WILLOW: empathogen (2024), Scary Kids Scaring Kids: The City Sleeps in Flames (2005). Bonus (for getting work done): Ludovico Einaudi: In a Time Lapse (2013)

 

Do you have a go-to restaurant in Eugene?
Yardy, Davis NW Smokehouse, Domek, Acorn Cafe, Pint Pot, New Day

 

What is your favorite pastime?
Thrifting, Collaging, Catching up with loved ones, Playing abstract strategy board games, Visiting museums, Watching Crash Course videos on YouTube

 

What scholar(s) changed the way you think about your work?
My undergraduate mentors: Dennis López, Araceli Esparza, Susan Carlile, Tim Caron

 

If you could recommend one Black Studies scholar, book or theory to our minors, what would it be?
Hortense J. Spillers’s theory of the "flesh" from "Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe: An American Grammar Book"

Black Studies courses taught:
All of my courses are Black Studies centered as I center Black authors, researchers, and languages from the Black Diaspora. Specifically, my course LING 201 (Language and Power) is a great way to get acquainted with issues within raciolinguistics, as well as LING 296 (Language and Society in the United States). I also teach LING 302 (Intro to Linguistic Behavior), and seminars in Neurolinguistics and Interdisciplinary Cognitive Sciences.

 

What top 5 artists/songs would be featured on your mixtape?
I usually phrase this as what my r&b/hip hop/rap Mt. Rushmore is - Fabolous, Blxst, Maleek Berry, KiDi, Keyshia Cole

 

Do you have a go-to restaurant in Eugene?
Party Bar is always switching it up, and I love that.

 

What is your favorite pastime?
Nowadays it's hanging out with my two under two, but I also love trying new recipes with my husband, and exploring new sights.

 

What scholar(s) changed the way you think about your work?
Everybody Black. No for real, John Rickford, Lisa Green, Salikoko Mufwene all changed the game. Additionally, Robert Leon Cooper wrote the book, "Language Planning and Social Change" which I found like changing because it zeros in on the common theme across time, cultures, and spaces, that  
language standardization has never been about inherent value and has always been decided by those in power. 

 

If you could recommend one Black Studies scholar, book or theory to our minors, what would it be?
Talking College: Making Space for Black Language Practices in Higher Education Book by Anne H.
Charity Hudley, Christine Mallinson, and Mary Bucholtz.
Be you, speak your way, it is the future and it is what matters most!