Nicole A. Spigner

Nicole A. Spigner is an Assistant Professor of Black Studies at Northwestern University's Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences. Her research focuses on 19th-20th century African American and Diaspora literature, with specializations in Black Classicism, Black Feminism, speculative fiction, and syncretic religion. She holds a Ph.D. in English from Vanderbilt University (2014), an M.A. from the University of Pennsylvania (2009), and a B.A. from the same institution (2007).

Her work examines neoclassical literature through a Black feminist lens, particularly analyzing how Black writers reimagined classical forms to redefine Black feminine identity. Her book project, Niobe Repeating: Black New Women’s Literature and Ovidian Transformation, studies authors like H. Cordelia Ray and Pauline E. Hopkins. She teaches courses such as Literatures of the Black World: Black Classicism and Feminist Afrofuturisms.

Her recent publications include analyses of Phillis Wheatley’s neoclassical poetics and entries on Frances Ellen Watkins Harper and Harriet A. Jacobs for Oxford Bibliographies (2020).

No specific grants or awards are listed, but her research emphasizes interdisciplinary connections between classical traditions and Black intellectual history.