C. Riley Snorton

C. Riley Snorton is a Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Chicago, jointly appointed in the Center for Gender and Sexuality Studies, where he has taught since 2018. A cultural theorist specializing in racial, sexual, and transgender histories, his work critically examines the intersections of identity through cultural productions and visual iconography.

Snorton's educational background includes:

• Ph.D. in Communication from the University of Pennsylvania Annenberg School for Communication (2010)
• Graduate certificates in Africana studies and women, gender, and sexuality studies

His research spans Black Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Critical Race Studies, Cultural Studies, Visual Culture, and Environmental Humanities. Snorton investigates how racial and gender identities are constructed historically and culturally, with particular focus on Black transgender experiences, hip hop, and visual representation. His scholarship reveals systemic connections between racial formation and gendered embodiment through meticulous archival analysis and cultural critique.

Snorton's publications consistently explore intersections of race and gender across historical periods, from the archival foundations of transgender identity in Black on Both Sides to contemporary cultural phenomena in Nobody is Supposed to Know. His recent work expands into art theory and environmental humanities, examining racial meaning in artistic value systems and ecological formations like swamps. This interdisciplinary trajectory demonstrates his commitment to challenging disciplinary boundaries while centering marginalized experiences.

His major accolades include:

• John Boswell Prize from the American Historical Association
• William Sanders Scarborough Prize from the Modern Language Association
• Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Nonfiction
• Sylvia Rivera Award in Transgender Studies
• Stonewall Book Award Committee Honorable Mention

Snorton has secured significant research support through:

• National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship at the Schomburg Center
• Andrew W. Mellon postdoctoral fellowship at Pomona College
• Two fellowships at Harvard's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute

As co-editor of GLQ: A Journal of Gay and Lesbian Studies and special issues on "Blackness" (Transgender Studies Quarterly) and "The Queerness of Hip Hop" (Palimpsest), he actively cultivates emerging scholarship and interdisciplinary dialogue. His current projects include co-editing The Flesh of the Matter: A Hortense Spillers Reader and authoring Mud: Ecologies of Racial Meaning, which investigates swamps as sites of racial formation in the Americas, positioning environmental contexts within critical race theory.