Darius Bost

Darius Bost is an Associate Professor of Black Studies and Gender & Women’s Studies at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), affiliated with the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. He serves as co-principal investigator of the Provost’s Initiative on the Racialized Body and co-editor of Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies. His work bridges Black Studies, queer theory, and medical humanities.

• Education: PhD from the University of Maryland-College Park

Research interests include Black literary/visual cultures, feminist/gender/sexuality studies, African American and LGBTQ histories, and medical humanities. Current projects: an interdisciplinary study of queer visual cultures of the Black Atlantic and a co-authored black queer history of the United States for Beacon Press.

His research has been supported by prestigious institutions such as Harvard’s Hutchins Center, the Eccles Centre at the British Library, and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation. Notable publications include Evidence of Being: The Black Gay Cultural Renaissance and the Politics of Violence (University of Chicago Press, 2019), recognized as award-winning.

• Grants & Fellowships: Funding from Harvard, British Library, Woodrow Wilson Foundation, Duke University, San Francisco State University, NYPL, and U Penn.

Engages in interdisciplinary scholarship, combining historical analysis with cultural critique to explore intersections of race, gender, and sexuality in Black communities.