Carter Mathes

Carter Mathes is an Associate Professor of English and Director of the Rutgers Advanced Institute for Critical Caribbean Studies (RAICCS) at Rutgers University. His research focuses on African American Literature, Sound Studies, and Hemispheric Studies with particular attention to the intersections of sound, literature, and political resistance.

• Education: PhD in African American Studies, University of California, Berkeley (2006); BA, University of Virginia
• Previous Roles: Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at Duke University (2003–2006)

His research explores how sound operates as a site of radical thought in Black literature and culture, exemplified by his first book Imagine the Sound: Experimental African American Literature After Civil Rights (2015). Current projects include Ecologies of Funk, examining transnational Black thought between Jamaica and New Orleans.

Mathes teaches courses such as Sound Studies in Theory and Practice and Caribbean Literature 1930s–Present. He serves as Associate Editor of Resonance: The Journal of Sound and Culture and co-editor of the Critical Caribbean Studies book series at Rutgers University Press.

Key Awards:

• NEH Scholar-in-Residence (2008–2009)
• Rutgers SAS Global Opportunity Award (2008–2009)
• Center for Cultural Analysis Fellow (2006)

His scholarship bridges literary analysis with sonic innovation, emphasizing Black internationalism and the materiality of sound in cultural production. He has organized conferences such as Re-evaluating Larry Neal’s Creative Vision of the Black Aesthetic (2021), furthering dialogues on Black Arts Movement legacies.