University of Chicago cultural theorist C. Riley Snorton, Occidental College’s 2020 Stafford Ellison Wright Black Alumni Scholar-in-Residence, will discuss the complexities of migrancy across the Black diaspora with SA Smyth, poet, translator, transdisciplinary scholar and assistant professor of African American studies at UCLA.
A cultural theorist who analyzes representations of race and gender throughout history, Snorton is the author of two widely acclaimed books, Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity (University of Minnesota 2017), and Nobody Is Supposed to Know: Black Sexuality on the Down Low (University of Minnesota Press 2014). One reviewer called Nobody Is Supposed to Know “a stunning new chapter in queer theory,” while Black on Both Sides was the winner of multiple awards, including the Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Nonfiction and a selection as an American Library Association Stonewall Honor Book in Nonfiction.
“C. Riley Snorton's research has altered the fields of Black studies, Queer studies, and gender studies,” says James Ford, associate professor of English. “Occidental is fortunate to have Snorton share his cutting-edge scholarship with students, faculty, alumni, and the broader SoCal community.”
Widely in demand as a speaker, Snorton has been a recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship at the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, an Andrew W. Mellon postdoctoral fellowship at Pomona College, and two fellowships at Harvard’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Annenberg School for Communication with graduate certificates in Africana studies and women, gender, and sexuality studies.
Created by Occidental’s Black Alumni Organization (BAO), the Stafford Ellison Wright Endowment enables distinguished Black scholars from a variety of fields, artists, elected officials and others to spend time in residence at Occidental each year. BAO members believe that a student’s educational experience will be enriched by in-depth contact with individuals who serve as symbols of excellence.
