Janell Hobson

Janell Hobson is Professor and Chair of the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University at Albany. She joined the core faculty shortly after receiving her Ph.D. in Women’s Studies at Emory University. Hobson has since devoted her research, teaching, and service to multiracial and transnational feminist issues in the discipline.

Hobson is the author of Venus in the Dark: Blackness and Beauty in Popular Culture (Routledge, 2005, second edition, 2018) and Body as Evidence: Mediating Race, Globalizing Gender (SUNY Press, 2012). She has also edited the volume Are All the Women Still White? Rethinking Race, Expanding Feminisms (SUNY Press, 2016). She is a contributing writer to Ms. Magazine and its blog, as well as other online pages, including the African American Intellectual History blog and The Feminist Wire. She also guest edited special volumes on Harriet Tubman and slavery in popular culture. She is currently writing a book on the intersections of black women’s histories and popular culture. Overall, Hobson uses a transnational lens to highlight women’s iconography and experiences in the African Diaspora.

Apart from teaching diverse courses on intersections of race, class, gender, media, popular culture, and feminist theory, Hobson engages in digital projects with her students.

Text from University of Albany website.