Christopher Freeburg

Christopher Freeburg is a Professor of English and holder of the Presidential Humanities and Social Sciences Endowed Chair at the University of Illinois. He is affiliated with the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory. His work focuses on African American literature, Black cultural studies, and the historical intersections of slavery and media aesthetics. Freeburg holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago (2006).

Research interests include the evolution of Black cultural life from slavery to modernity, the Atlantic World’s impact on racial narratives, and the interior life in Black aesthetics. He is currently completing Soul: A Brief History of Black Cultural Life (Yale UP, 2026) and a project on Black humanity.

Notable publications include Counterlife: Slavery after Resistance and Social Death (2021), Black Aesthetics and the Interior Life (2017), and Melville and the Idea of Blackness (2012), which earned the HRI Prize for Research in the Humanities (2014). He has served on editorial boards for American Literature, Leviathan, and J19.

• Awards: Hennig Cohen Prize (2012), HRI Prize (2014), Honorable Mention HRI Prize (2018)
• Editorial Roles: Editorial board memberships since 2012
• Labs/Teams: Active in the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory