Erica R. Edwards

Erica R. Edwards is Professor of African American Studies and English at Yale University. She is the author of The Other Side of Terror: Black Women and the Culture of U.S. Empire (NYU Press, 2021), which was a finalist for the Prose Award from the Association of American Publishers and the annual book prize from the Association of African American Life and History. Her first book, Charisma and the Fictions of Black Leadership, (University of Minnesota Press), was awarded the Modern Language Association’s William Sanders Scarborough Prize. Professor Edwards is the co-editor, with Roderick Ferguson and Jeffrey Ogbar, of Keywords for African American Studies. Her work on African American literature, politics, and gender critique has appeared in journals such as differences, Callaloo, American Quarterly, and American Literary History, and her public-facing work has appeared in venues such as The Washington Post, Public Books, and A-Line: A Journal of Progressive Thought. Before moving to Yale, Edwards taught at Rutgers University, New Brunswick and the University of California, Riverside. She founded the Lindon Barrett Scholars Mentoring Program and the UC Center for Black Studies in California. Her work has been supported by grants and fellowships from the Institute of Citizens & Scholars, the Mellon Foundation, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.