top of page

Academic Appointments and Education

July 2023 --

Assistant Professor of Race and Media

School of Media Studies
The New School
New York, NY

July 2021 - July 2023

Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow of Race and Media

School of Media Studies
The New School
New York, NY

2019-2021

Visiting Assistant Professor

Department of Gender and Sexuality Studies,
University of California, Irvine
Irvine, CA

2018-2019

Visiting Assistant Professor

Program of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
The College of Wooster
Wooster, OH

September 7, 2018
(Conferred Date)

Ph.D., African American Studies

Northwestern University
Department of African American Studies
Evanston, IL

December 2011
(Conferred Date)

University of California, Riverside, Riverside, CA

B.A. Political Science and African American Studies

CV: CV

Writing and Media Coverage

Book Manuscripts

​

Proctor, Brittnay. Minnie Riperton’s Come to My Garden (Bloomsbury Press: 33 1/3 Series, November 2022)


Proctor, Brittnay. ‘Doing It To Death’: Post-1960s Black Popular Performance and Theories of Black Gender (In-Progress)

Peer-Reviewed Articles


Proctor, Brittnay. “‘I Am What I Am’: Disco, Queer Anthems, and Black Femme Labor” (In-Progress)


Proctor, Brittnay. “‘Something Wonderful’: Undisiciplinarity and the Future of Black Studies.” “Becoming Undisciplined” Special Forum, ASAP/Journal (January 2022).


Proctor, Brittnay and James Bliss. “‘It’s Not as Easy as It Looks on the Page’: Black Feminist Classics Against the Promise of Security.” Feminist Formations 32, no. 1 (2020): 15-28.


Proctor, Brittnay. “‘Shout It Out:’ Patrice Rushen as Polyphonist and the Sounding of Black Women’s Affectability and Genius.” The Journal of Popular Music Studies, 29, no. 4 (2017).

Book Reviews and Digital Humanities Reviews


Proctor, Brittnay. Review of .break .dance. Reviews in Digital Humanities, Volume 2, No. 8 (August 16, 2021). https://reviewsindh.pubpub.org/pub/breakdance/release/3

​

Proctor, Brittnay. Review of The Race of Sound: Listening, Timbre, and Vocality in African American Music. Duke University Press, 2018. 288 pp. $25.95 paper. African American Review, Volume 54, Numbers 1-2 (Spring/Summer 2021): 175-178.


Proctor, Brittnay. Review of Funk the Erotic: Transaesthetics and Black Sexual Cultures and The Sound of Culture: Diaspora and Black Technopoetics. American Literature 91 (2019): 429-431.


Proctor, Brittnay. Review of The Hippest Trip in America: Soul Train and the Evolution of Culture and Style. Nelson George. New York: William Morrow, 2014. 236 pp. $22.40 Cloth. Journal of Popular Culture 49, no. 4 (2016): 945-48.

Encyclopedia Entries


Proctor, Brittnay. “Sun-Ra,” in African American Culture: An Encyclopedia of People, Traditions, and Customs, ed. Omari L. Dyson, Judson L. Jeffries, and Kevin L. Brooks. Santa Barbara: Greenwood, An Imprint of ABC-CLIO, 2020.

Public Writing


Proctor, Brittnay. "Toni Cade Bambara Warned Us About Hyperfocusing On Gender,” Essence.com, https://www.essence.com/news/toni-cade-bambara-gender-feature/, December 16, 2022.

​

Proctor, Brittnay. “Honey.” Board of Photography, http://boardofphotography.com/brittnay-l-proctor/, July 1, 2020.


Proctor, Brittnay. “Of a Famous Dog.” Hyped on Melancholy, https://www.hypedonmelancholy.com/of-a-famous-dog, June 26, 2020. 


Proctor, Brittnay. “Mingus Ah Um (1959) and An Ethics of Care in Jazz.” Sounding Out!: The Sound Studies Blog, https://soundstudiesblog.com/2019/09/23/mingus-ah-um-1959-and-an-ethics-of-care-in-jazz/, September 23, 2019.

Media Coverage


“Dr. Brittnay L. Proctor discusses her new study on Minnie Riperton,” The House That Soul Built, https://thesoulhouse.net/2023/01/10/proctor-riperton/, January 10, 2023.


Justin Tinsley, “For Allen Iverson, it was never just about ‘practice,’”Andscape, https://andscape.com/features/for-allen-iverson-it-was-never-just-about-practice/, May 6, 2022.


Melissa Wasserman, “Northwestern Hosts Black Feminist Futures Symposium,” Windy City Times, https://windycitytimes.com/m/APPredirect.php?AID=55320, May 25, 2016.

CV: CV

Grants and Awards

Finalist

 University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2020 – 2021 Competition

Visiting Scholar Research Grant

The Gladys Krieble Delmas Visiting Scholar Program at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Library and Archives, March 2018

CV: CV

Teaching Experience

Fall 2020

Visiting Assistant Professor, University of California, Irvine, Gender and Sexuality Studies

Gender, Sexuality, and Black Popular Music

Spring 2020

Visiting Assistant Professor, University of California, Irvine, Gender and Sexuality Studies

Feminist Cultural Studies: Feminist Print Culture


Visiting Assistant Professor, University of California, Irvine, Gender and Sexuality Studies

Gender and Law

Winter 2020

Visiting Assistant Professor, University of California, Irvine, Gender and Sexuality Studies

Feminist Approaches to Sound Studies and Visual Culture (Graduate Seminar)


Visiting Assistant Professor, University of California, Irvine, Gender and Sexuality Studies

Gender, Sexuality, and Black Popular Music

Fall 2019

Visiting Assistant Professor, University of California, Irvine, Gender and Sexuality Studies

Image Problems

Spring 2019

Visiting Assistant Professor, The College of Wooster, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

Race, Gender, and Popular Music


Visiting Assistant Professor, The College of Wooster, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

Histories of Feminist Thought


Visiting Assistant Professor, The College of Wooster, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

Introduction to Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

Fall 2018

Visiting Assistant Professor, The College of Wooster, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

Introduction to Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (2 Sections)

Winter 2017

Instructor, Northwestern University, African American Studies, Winter 2017

Theories of Black Gender and Black Sexuality

CV: CV

Invited Talks

“Between Body and Flesh: Black Gender Subjectivity and The 1970s Funk LP,” Illuminations: The 10th Anniversary Symposium for The Dark Room: Race and Visual Culture Studies Seminar, Dartmouth College and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, October 13-15, 2022


“Being Undisciplined: Black Feminist Study of Gender and Sexuality,” with Dr. Chelsea Frazier, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, April 1, 2022 (Online)


“Charles Mingus, Mingus Ah Um (1959),” Guest Lecture, “Jazz and the Civil Rights Era,” Emory University, Dr. Jason Rosenholtz-Witt, March 16, 2022 (Online)


“Say it Loud: Black Voices in U.S. Popular Music Studies,” International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM), Research Seminar Series, U.S. Branch, June 7, 2021 (Online)


“Decolonizing the Narrative in our #OwnVoices Panel,” Seattle Black Film Festival, April 15, 2021 (Online)


“This Longing Vessel: Studio Museum Artists-in-Residence 19-20 Panel,” Department of Performance Studies, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, March 22, 2021(Online)


“‘I Am What I Am’: Disco, Queer Anthems, and Black Femme Labor,” American Studies Working Group, Haverford College, February 17, 2021 (Online)


“Sonic Gardens, Black Women’s Subjectivity, and the Limits of Genre: Minnie Riperton's Come to My Garden (1970),” University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, January 16, 2020


“#MeToo and the Midterms: An Interdisciplinary Symposium About Gender, Social Movements, and the Results of the Midterms,” The College of Wooster, Wooster, OH, November 27, 2018


“Atomic Doggin’: On Black Infrahumanity and Sonic Black Melancholia,” “Sounds from the Archive,” sense//non//sense series, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, October 1, 2018 


“Insurgency, Solidarity, and Resistance in the Post-Civil Rights Moment,” “(Re) Conceptualizing Fascism in the Post-Civil Rights Era,” Northwestern Ethnic Studies Graduate Student Colloquium 2017, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, March 3, 2017


“Performing Black Masculine Alterity via Black Women’s Enfleshed Sex Work: The Ohio Players Skin Tight (1974), “The Anoriginial Force of Black Performance,” Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, February 8, 2017

CV: CV

Selected Conference and Symposium Presentations

“The ‘Gangsta Bitch’ of G-Funk: Theorizing Black Gender and Sexuality at the End of Black Morality,” “HipHop Studies in Queer Black Feminism,” HipHop Literacies Conference 2023, March 30-31, 2023, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH


“Between Body and Flesh: Black Gender Subjectivity and The 1970s Funk LP,” “On the edges of racial containment: photography, land, and the ethnographic gaze,” ASAP/13 Conference, September 14-17, 2022, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA (Hybrid)


“‘Doing It to Death’: Funk Music and Theories of Black Gender,” 2022 Junior Faculty Symposium, Popular Music Study Group of the American Musicological Society, June 14-16, 2022, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH


“Between Confinement and Opacity: Post-1960 Black Popular Music and the Long-Play Record (LP),” American Studies Association Conference 2021, October 7-10, 2021, San Juan, Puerto Rico (Rescheduled 2020 Conference, Online)


“‘Come to My Garden’: The Pastoral, Juvenescence, and the Limits of Genre,” Pop Conference, September 23, 2020, Seattle, WA (Online)


“‘Expecting’: Minnie Riperton’s Come to My Garden and the Limits of Genre,” American Studies Association Conference 2019, Honolulu, HI, November 9, 2019


“Atomic Doggin’: On Sonic Black Melancholia,” Black Sound and the Archive Symposium, Yale University, New Haven, CT, February 8, 2019 


“Atomic Doggin’: On Black Infrahumanity and Sonic Black Melancholia,” Cultural Studies Colloquium, The College of Wooster, Wooster, OH, September 28, 2018


“The Limits of Genre: Black Feminist Soundscapes in Toni Cade Bambara’s ‘Medley’,” American Studies Association Conference 2017, Chicago, IL, November 9, 2017


“‘Trying for Days’: Black Women Funk Musician’s and Colonial Black Womanhood,” National Women’s Studies Association Conference 2016, “Decoloniality,” Montréal, Québec, November 11, 2016


“‘Shout It Out’: Patrice Rushen as Polyphonist and the Sounding of Black Women’s Racialized Gender Affectability,” EMP Pop Conference 2016, “From a Whisper to a Scream: The Voice in Music,” EMP Museum, Seattle, WA, April 16, 2016 


“Shout It Out: Sounding Black Women’s Racialized Gender Affectability,” National Women’s Studies Association Conference 2015, “Precarity,” Milwaukee, WI, November 15, 2015


“Embracing Abjection and Reperforming Blackness: Funk and the Politics of Black Liberation,” Northwestern University Black Graduate Student Association Conference 2014, “Reimagining the Black Fantastic: Developing a Multidisciplinary Approach to Scholarship,” Evanston, IL, May 3, 2014


“Fiber of Time” Performance and Graduate Student Facilitator for Undergraduate Performance Workshops, Patti Pace Performance Festival 2014, “Performance and Community Intervention,” With MetaPhysique (Directed by Dr. Jade Huell), Georgia Regents University, Augusta, GA, January 30-February 2, 2014


“‘Standing on the Verge of Getting It On’: The Grammatologies of Funk Music as a Counter-Discourse to Knowledge Production,” Cultural Studies Association Conference 2013, “Beyond Disciplinarity: Interventions in Cultural Studies and the Arts,” Columbia College, Chicago, IL, May 25, 2013

CV: CV
bottom of page