BOOK
The Blackademic Life: Academic Fiction, Higher Education, and the Black Intellectual Northwestern University Press, October 15, 2019
SELECTED ARTICLES, REVIEWS AND INTERVIEWS
“Ode to Samuel Delany.” JSTOR Daily, 22 February 2023.
“Remembering Her Memories: Lucille Clifton’s Generations in Our Time.” JSTOR Daily, 1 February 2023.
“Robert Hayden’s Relatable Fatigue.” JSTOR Daily, 22 April 2020.
“In Search of Samuel R. Delany.” Los Angeles Review of Books, 22 February 2020.
“Black or Gay: Meditations on Marlon Riggs’s Tongues Untied at 30.” Black Perspectives, 30 July 2019.
“Revisiting Racism on Campus in John Singleton’s Higher Learning.” The North Star, 20 May 2019.
“Digital Du Bois.” Black Perspectives, 14 May 2019.
“Should Walt Whitman Be #Cancelled? Black America Talks Back to the “Good Gray Poet” at 200.” JSTOR Daily, 17 April 2019.
“The Radical Hope of Octavia Butler.” Black Perspectives. 22 January 2019.
“A Walk Through Teju Cole’s Open City.” The Revelator. 15 December 2018.
“The Complex Life of Writer Chester B. Himes.” Black Perspectives. 15 October 2018.
“Paule Marshall’s ‘Brooklyn’ and the #MeToo Movement.” Black Perspectives. 18 July 2018.
“Samuel R. Delany’s Atlantis: Model 1924 and the Origins of Blackness.” Featured on “The Discipline” a blog of Modernism/modernity. 11 July 2018.
“W. E. B. Du Bois, Gender, and Black History.” Black Perspectives. 5 June 2018.
“Some Blues but Not the Kind That’s Blue.” The New Inquiry. 30 April 2018.
“W. E. B. Du Bois, Higher Education, and the Black Intellectual.” Black Perspectives. 21 April 2018.
“Representing HBCUs: Spike Lee’s School Daze at 30.” Black Perspectives. 23 March 2018.
“W. E. B. Du Bois and the Representation of Black Higher Education.” Black Perspectives. 21 February 2018.
“‘My Music Is Words’: Sun Ra’s Poetry Offers Insight into the Musician and the Man.” Poetry Foundation. 5 February 2018.
“The Story of Historically Black Colleges and Universities.” Black Perspectives. 22 January 2018.
“Getting In: Samuel R. Delany’s Dark Reflections and the Racial Politics of Literary Awards.” The New Inquiry. 25 August 2017.
“What Does Bill Cosby’s Problematic Legacy Mean for Black Colleges.” JSTOR Daily. 1 March 2017.
“W. E. B. Du Bois, The Black Flame, and the Struggle Ahead.” African American Intellectual History Society. 11 January 2017.
“Dear Sister Outsider.” Poetry Foundation. 18 May 2016.
Review of The Postwar African American Novel: Protest and Discontent, 1945-1950 by Stephanie Brown. Callaloo: A Journal of African Diaspora Arts and Letters. 38.5 (2015): 1189-1190.
“Using Ralph Ellison to Concern-Troll Black Students.” Warscapes. 24 November 2015.
“Life Upon These Shores.” (On Robert Hayden’s “Middle Passage.”) Poetry Foundation. 11 November 2015.
“Dry Bones Breathe.” (On Henry Dumas). The New Inquiry. 30 July 2015.
“Culture Warriors: Ishmael Reed’s Japanese by Spring and Afro-Asian Critique.” African American Intellectual History Society. 30 May 2015.
“Percival Everett by Percival Everett.” The New Inquiry. 5 May 2015.
“The Souls of Ivy Folk” (A Review of Dear White People). The New Inquiry. 13 November 2014.
“Samuel R. Delany: Another Roundtable.” The Mumpsimus. 24 March 2014.
“The Strange Career of Samuel R. Delany.” The GC Advocate. October 2013.
“History, Myth and Identity in Robert Hayden’s ‘Middle Passage’ and Samuel R. Delany’s Atlantis: Model 1924.” Cruising the Disciplines: A Symposium on Samuel R. Delany. Spec. issue of Annals of Scholarship 20. 1 (2013): 123-130.
“Poe Boy”: A Review of Mat Johnson’s Pym. The GC Advocate. May 2011.
“From Nieuw Haarlem to ‘New’ Harlem.” The GC Advocate. April 2011.
“James Baldwin in Obama’s America.” The GC Advocate. October 2010.
“Academic Novel: Stoner by John Williams.” The GC Advocate. August 2010.
“10 More Academic Films.” The GC Advocate. August 2010.
“The University on Screen: The Top 10 Academic Films of All Time.” The GC Advocate. May 2010.
Book Review: “Pictures of an Institution.” The GC Advocate. February 2010.
Book Review: “Marcus Garvey and Black Solidarity in the 21st Century.” The GC Advocate. December 2008.
Book Review: “Toward a New Urban Decadence: Review of Bruce Benderson’s Sex and Isolation.” The GC Advocate. March 2008.
Book Review: “It’s a Man’s World: The Politics of Black Masculinity.” The GC Advocate. November 2007.
Book Review: “The Artist as an Old Man: Samuel R. Delany’s Dark Reflections.” The GC Advocate. September 2007.
INVITED LECTURES AND PANELS
Book Launch: The Blackademic Life: Academic Fiction, Higher Education, and the Black Intellectual. In conversation with Debarati Biswas. McNally Jackson Books, New York, NY, 14 November 2019.
Lecture: “W. E. B. Du Bois in the South.” Bard High School Early College, New York, NY, 6 November 2019.
“Representing Black Life in Contemporary Literature and Performance” (Book Launch). With Stacie McCormick. Institute for Research on the African Diaspora and the Caribbean (IRADAC), New York, 24 October 2019.
“Panel on Race, Sexuality, and Walt Whitman.” The Print Center, Philadelphia, PA, 16 October 2019.
Introduction to John Singleton’s Higher Learning. Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), Brooklyn, NY, 15 September 2019.
Lecture: “The Literary Imagination of W. E. B. Du Bois.” Bard High School Early College, New York, NY, 14 November 2018.
Panelist: “The Reality of Race and Gender in Science Fiction and Gaming.” With Kishonna Gray and andré carrington. Institute for Research on the African Diaspora and the Caribbean (IRADAC), New York, NY, 1 November 2018.
Lecture: “The Artist Denied: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Academic Novel.” Iowa State University, Ames, IA, 6 April 2017.
Panelist: “Beyond Ferguson: Poetry, Prose, & Student Activism after Michael Brown.” Montclair State University. Montclair, NJ, 8 February 2016.
RECENT CONFERENCE TALKS
Roundtable on New Perspectives on the Black Intellectual Tradition. US Intellectual History Society (USIH), The New School, New York, NY, 9 November 2019.
Panel Chair: “Du Bois Lately: Emergent Critiques of W. E. B. Du Bois at 150.” American Studies Association. Atlanta, GA. (November 8, 2018)
“In Search of Samuel R. Delany.” Science Fiction Research Association. Milwaukee, WI. (July 2, 2018)
“W. E. B. Du Bois, The Quest of the Silver Fleece, and the Over-Education of the Negro.” African American Intellectual History Society, Waltham, MA. (March 31, 2018)
“W. E. B. Du Bois, The Black Flame, and the Art of the Novel.” American Studies Association, Chicago, IL. (November 9, 2017)
“W. E. B. Du Bois, The Black Flame, and the Art of the Novel.” African American Intellectual History Society. Nashville, TN. (March 24, 2017)
“Art, Labor and Academia in Samuel R. Delany’s Dark Reflections.” Modern Language Association. Philadelphia, PA. (January 8, 2017)
Panel Chair: “Unhomely Narratives: Migration and Displacement in Black Diaspora Literature.” Modern Language Association. Philadelphia, PA. (January 6, 2017)
“The Artist Denied: The Creative Imagination of W. E. B. Du Bois.” African American Intellectual History Society. Chapel Hill, NC. (11 March 2016)
“Life Upon These Shores: “Robert Hayden’s ‘Middle Passage’ and Samuel R. Delany’s Atlantis: Model 1924.” Association for the Study of African-American Life and History (ASALH). Atlanta, GA. (25 September 2015)
“Academia and the Riddle of Race in Percival Everett’s Academic Fiction.” Northeast Modern Language Association. Toronto, ON. (30 April 2015)
“The Autobiography of an Over-Educated Negro.” Northeast Modern Language Association. Toronto, ON. (30 April 2015)
“Black Queer Future: Reading Samuel Delany’s Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders.” DC Area Queer Studies Conference. University of Maryland, College Park. (17 April 2015)
DISSERTATION
The Over-Education of the Negro: Academic Novels, Higher Education and the Black Intellectual. 2014.
MEDIA
“Walt Whitman, Racism, and American Literature, with Matt Miller and Lavelle Porter.” Walt Whitman Initiative, 13 August, 2020.
“Lavelle Porter, The Blackademic Life.” Rocking the Academy, 4 March 2020.
“Episode 175 – The Blackademic Life with Lavelle Porter.” The Nostalgia Trap, 20 February 2020.
“Segment on Walt Whitman 200.” On the Ground WPFW 89.3, 24 May 2019. https://onthegroundshow.org/tag/lavelle-porter/
The Uses of Anger: Audre Lorde Then and Now. Poetry Foundation, 18 May 2016.
Robert Hayden’s “Middle Passage.” Poetry Foundation, 9 December 2014.
“Black Man in the Cosmos.” Jacobin Magazine, 9 September 2014. Podcast. (Originally featured on the podcast “The Nostalgia Trap”)
“Walking Tours of Harlem for Black History Month.” WABC-TV 7, New York. 16 February 2014.
Destination Harlem TV. History Segment Host. 2013. Web Series.
“Black History Month in Harlem.” Toni On! New York. CBS. WLNY 10/55, New York. 16 February 2013.
WORKING BIBLIOGRAPHIES
THE BLACKADEMIC LIFE: THE BLOG 