Justin Gifford

Justin Gifford is an Associate Professor of English Literature at the University of Nevada, Reno, within the Department of English (College of Liberal Arts). He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia (2006), an M.A. from the University of Chicago (1999), and a B.A. from the University of Washington (1998, magna cum laude). His research focuses on American and African American literature, with specialties in popular literature, archival research, and critical biography.

Dr. Gifford’s work bridges literary analysis with cultural history, particularly examining marginalized voices in crime fiction, pulp publishing, and biographical narratives. His award-winning publications include Street Poison (2015), a biography of Iceberg Slim, and Pimping Fictions (2013), which explores African American crime literature. His forthcoming book Time Considered as a Helix: The Biography of Samuel R. Delany (2024) received a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship.

His research has been recognized through finalist positions for the Edgar Allan Poe Award and Phi Beta Kappa’s Christian Gauss Award. Gifford teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on 20th-century American literature, cultural studies, crime literature, and Afrofuturism. He actively engages with academic communities through presentations at conferences like the Modern Language Association.

His scholarly contributions span biographies of influential figures (Eldridge Cleaver, Iceberg Slim), literary histories, and edited volumes. Gifford’s work emphasizes interdisciplinary approaches, combining archival methods with critical race theory and cultural studies.