I am an Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia—Vancouver. I think, write, teach, and speak on Blackness from the 19th century to the contemporary moment.

In my scholarly and critical-creative work, my most pressing and urgent concerns have consolidated around questions of the history, theory, and philosophy of: the African diaspora, race, gender, environmental and medical racism, and Black arts and letters.

I am currently at work on two scholarly monographs. The first, entitled On Black Breath, traces a genealogy of breathing and Blackness in the United States. My second book, Dirt: Soil and Other Dark Matter, turns to dirt for understanding how Blackness—a series of relations that have emerged as part of extractive and accumulative logics—has shaped global considerations of the Anthropocene and refused the extractive relations of racial capitalism. My writing has appeared in Social Text, The Journal of Literature and Medicine, Protean Magazine, Qui Parle, and I have essays forthcoming on Black holds, pettiness, and other topics in several edited collections and exhibition catalogs.

In addition to my research, I regularly teach survey and specialized courses on 19th through contemporary Black and American art and cultures, literary and critical theory, digital media, and Black feminist thought. Past and forthcoming courses include “I Can’t Breathe: On Blackness and Breathing Beyond the Contemporary Moment,” “Black Matters, Black Anthropocenes,” “Racial Capitalism in the Flesh,” “Black and Blue: Black Ecologies of the Oceanic,” and “Reading Slavery.”

Prior to joining the Department of English Language and Literatures , I was the John Holmes Assistant Professor in the Humanities at Tufts University. I received my Ph.D. in English and Interdisciplinary Humanistic Study from Princeton University. You can find me on twitter @kgbain.