Keynote Address

“From Protest to Politics to Celebrity?: Black cultural pathology melodrama from Cosby to Obama”

Nikol G. Alexander-Floyd is Associate Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies and Political Sciene at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. A lawyer and political scientist, Dr. Alexander-Floyd has been actively engaged in a wide range of political and legal issues and has provided commentary as a guest for a variety of venues, such as NPR and the Oprah Winfrey Show. She currently serves on the Rutgers Faculty Senate, the Executive Council for Rutgers AAUP/AFT, and Rutgers University Committee on the Prevention of Sexual Harassment. Dr. Alexander-Floyd is the author of Gender, Race, and Nationalism in Contemporary Black Politics (Pagrave-MacMillan, 2007), which examines Black male crisis ideology, the gender politics of Black cultural nationalism, and white nationalism and the state; and co-editor (with Julia Jordan-Zachery) of Black Women in Politics: Demanding Citizenship, Challenging Power, and Seeking Justice (SUNY Press, 2018). Her articles have appeared in leading journals such as Feminist Formations, The International Journal of Africana Studies, Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies, Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism, The National Political Science Review, Politics and Gender, PS: Political Science and Politics, and Signs. Her current book project, Liminal Subjects: Black Women, Melodrama, and Postfeminism (forthcoming NYU Press), investigates the implications of post-feminist, post-civil-rights ideology and melodrama fro Black and US gender politics.