Teaching & Research
Class Is In
Session.
I teach courses on Black American counterculture, Black Queer cinema history, and what it actually takes to build audiences and community for Black film.
Available for university courses, guest lectures, industry panels, and conference keynotes · Based in Los Angeles · Available to travel
01
From Race Films to Release Strategy: Black Cinema, Black Audiences, and the Business of Representation
Black audiences have always shown up for Black film. The industry is a different story. Marketing campaigns for Black cinema have been underfunded afterthoughts for decades, built by people who didn’t understand Black moviegoers and, in many cases, still don’t. Meanwhile, plenty of theaters weren’t sure they wanted Black audiences in the first place. This course traces that history from the Race Films of the early 1900s to today and makes the case for what theatrical marketing to Black audiences should actually look like.
Also available as a 1-hour keynote or guest lecture.
02
I Am Not Your Negro:
A Brief History of Black American Counterculture
From queer blues divas during Jim Crow to Afrofuturism in Black Panther, this course traces how Black Americans have used culture as a tool of resistance, and how those countercultural movements shaped mainstream American culture without receiving credit for it.
Also available as a 1-hour keynote or guest lecture.
03
Tongues Untied:
A Brief History of
Black Queer Cinema
From the late 1960s to Moonlight, this lecture traces the Black queer films, filmmakers, actors, and media makers who navigated the complex intersections of race, sexuality, and artistic expression, and the pivotal moments that defined this rich and underexamined cinematic tradition.
Also available as a 1-hour keynote or guest lecture.
04
Reels of Resistance:
A Brief History of Black American Cinema
From Race Films to modern Black Hollywood, Black filmmakers and actors carved paths for representation against an unrelenting backdrop of racism and exclusion. This course celebrates Black cinema as both art form and act of cultural resilience.
Where I’ve Taught
Published Research
African American Cultural Resistance to Racial Discrimination in Old West Baltimore, 1930–1980
This paper traces the ways Black Baltimoreans used culture — music, performance, community gathering — as active resistance to racial discrimination across five decades. It began as a Ronald E. McNair Scholar project at UMBC and set the course of my life’s work.
Currently Researching
In Progress
Black Transmasculine Representation on Screen
A historical survey of Black transmasculine characters, mediamakers, and films across American cinema. This project surveys that record: who was on screen, who made the films, and what the archive has chosen to forget.
In Progress
Black Queer Media on Independent Platforms
Before streaming platforms started greenlighting Black queer content, Black queer creators were already making it on YouTube and other independent media platforms, on their own terms, for audiences the industry wasn’t serving. This project takes it seriously as cultural production, community infrastructure, and an archive that could disappear with a terms-of-service update.