Brian Stephens
Education
Ph.D. in Ethnic Studies at University of California, Riverside
Master’s Degree in African American Studies at University of California, Los Angeles
Biography
Brian Stephens is Assistant Professor of African American Studies, with joint appointments in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts (IARTS) in the Chaddock + Morrow College of Fine Arts and the School of Media Arts & Studies (MDIA) in the Scripps College of Communication. He was hired as part of a cohort through the Provost's IDEA (Inclusive, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility) Initiative.
He earned a Master’s Degree in African American Studies at University of California, Los Angeles and a Ph.D. in Ethnic Studies at University of California, Riverside. As a Black Studies scholar, his interdisciplinary research has recently focused on Black engagement with what he calls “Black Camp.” Black Camp is an oppositional cultural practice and aesthetic that expands the meanings of Camp (a queer cultural practice that employs theatricality, humor, and incongruity to playfully but also meaningfully undermine received notions of identity). His research argues that Camp has long but obscured roots in Black queer vernacular traditions, and his work on Black Camp is a recovery of the African-American artists that helped develop the practice throughout the 20th and early 21st century. His upcoming research aims to examine the Black queer roots of Punk Rock music.
His manuscript “Prissy’s Quittin’ Time: The Black Camp Aesthetics of Kara Walker” was published in Open Cultural Studies Journal in 2017.
Courses Taught
- AAS 2500 Blackness and the Arts
- AAS 3500 African American Arts and Artists
- AAS 3520 Blacks in Contemporary American Cinema
- AAS 3530 Survey of Black Independent Cinema
- AAS 3550 History of African American Music I, Slavery-1926
- AAS 3560 History of African American Music II, 1926-Present
- AAS 3570 Black Music Criticism: Hiphop history, culture and politics