Mireille Miller-Young

Mireille Miller-Young is an Associate Professor in the Department of Feminist Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her work focuses on race, gender, and sexuality in US history, popular culture, and the sex industries. She holds affiliations with Film and Media Studies, Black Studies, History, and Comparative Literature departments. Dr. Miller-Young earned her PhD and MA from New York University and a BA from Emory University.

Her research explores Black cultural studies, the history of sexuality, and pornography/sex work studies. Notable publications include A Taste for Brown Sugar: Black Women in Pornography (2014), which won major awards, and co-edited volumes like Black Sexual Economies (2019). She leads initiatives like the Black Sexuality Studies Collective and the New Sexualities Research Initiative at UCSB.

Her recent work includes a visiting fellowship at the Institute for Cultural Inquiry Berlin for her upcoming book Hoe Theory, and projects such as The Black Erotic Archive and Sex Worker Oral History Project. Awards include the Sara A. Whaley Prize, John Hope Franklin Prize, and UCSB’s Distinguished Teaching Award.

Dr. Miller-Young serves on editorial boards for Porn Studies and Signs, and her public engagement includes media contributions to The New York Times, Netflix’s Explained, and podcasts like Marketplace. Her interdisciplinary approach bridges academia, activism, and cultural critique.