Sara E. Johnson

Sara E. Johnson is a Professor of Literature at the University of California, San Diego. She specializes in the literature and cultural studies of the Hispanophone, Francophone, and Anglophone Caribbean and its diasporas, with a focus on hemispheric American studies and the Age of Revolution. Her research also explores music and dance of the African Diaspora, informed by extensive fieldwork in Senegal, Cuba, Haiti, and Martinique.

Johnson holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Stanford University and a B.A. in Comparative Literature and African American Studies from Yale University. She has held prestigious fellowships from the Ford Foundation, UC President’s Postdoctoral Program, and others. Her major publications include The Fear of French Negroes (2012) and Encyclopédie Noire (2023), which examine transcolonial intellectual networks and revolutionary politics.

She co-edited Kaiso! Writings By and About Katherine Dunham (2006), recognized as a top arts book, and Una ventana a Cuba y los Estudios cubanos (2010). Johnson mentors students through programs like McNair and the Undergraduate Faculty Mentorship initiative, having advised over 45 doctoral and MFA committees. Her former students hold academic positions at institutions including Brown, Yale, and UCSD.

Johnson serves as Co-Director of UCSD’s Black Studies Project and is affiliated with Black Diaspora & African American Studies, Center for Iberian & Latin American Studies, Ethnic Studies, and Critical Gender Studies. Her courses span Caribbean discourse, transcolonial American studies, and interdisciplinary topics like 'Salsa Music: Style and Substance.'