• Director: Cedric Burrows

• Co-Director: Robert S. Smith

• Committee Members:

• Josef Benson and Jason Farr

Chapter One: Malcolm

Chapter 3 analyzes the impact of police brutality and community violence on hip-hop through the music of Tupac Shakur. I argue that Tupac functions as an ancestral figure whose artistic and political interventions continue to inspire contemporary Black rappers and resonate broadly, extending the influence of Black radical thought and activism to audiences beyond traditional activist circles.

Chapter 4 examines the contemporary Black Lives Matter movement through young adult literature, focusing on Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give. I argue that this literature provides youth with critical frameworks for understanding police brutality, structural anti-Black violence, and Black trauma, connecting literary study to ongoing social and political struggles.

Dissertation Presentations

“‘Death in These Streets’: Revolution and Violence from The Black Power Movement to The Black Lives Matter Movement”
Invited Lecturer, Soup with Substance: A Lunchtime Speaker Series on Topics of Justice and Peace
Campus Ministry and Center for Urban Research, Teaching, and Outreach (CURTO), Marquette University. February 2022.

​20th and 21st Century American Literature; African American Literature; Black Studies; Hip Hop Studies; Film Studies, LGBTQ+ and Gender Studies; Popular Culture

Chapter 1 examines themes of self-fashioned identity, martyrdom, and legacy through a close reading of The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X and Alex Haley. I argue that Malcolm X emerges as a foundational figure for later generations of Black activists who challenged corrupt policing through political organizing, grassroots activism, and armed self-defense.

Chapter 2 focuses on the second generation of Black activism through an analysis of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. Centering a close reading of Huey P. Newton’s autobiography, Revolutionary Suicide, the chapter examines the tension between the Party’s public service mission—education, housing, and healthcare—and the public and private reputations of its leaders. I argue that the Party’s community-centered political vision was ultimately undermined by the actions of rogue members whose criminal acts, including murder, destabilized the organization and its public legacy.

"'Only Black Blood Drippin': African American Communal Identity, Police Brutality, and Violence in Rapsody's and Tupac Shakur's Music"
Black Resistance through Aesthetics Panel
Midwest Modern Language Association, Annual Conference, Minneapolis, Minnesota. November 2022.

My dissertation contributes to African American literary studies by offering a literary genealogy that traces patterns of Black activism, identity, and cultural production across multiple modes, including literature, film, music, and youth media. By examining Hip Hop and Young Adult literature alongside traditional literary texts, my work expands the Black literary canon to include contemporary cultural forms. More broadly, it illuminates the histories and strategies of Black activism, demonstrating how artistic and literary production shapes cultural memory and public understanding of social justice struggles.