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​Prof. Dr. Stephanie Leigh Batiste is Associate Professor of Black Studies and English at The University of California at Santa Barbara and Director of the Hemispheric South/s Research Initiative. Her research and teaching areas include Black Performance Studies, African American Literature and Culture, American Studies, and Cultural Studies.

Her book, Darkening Mirrors: Imperial Representation in Depression Era African American Performance (Duke University Press, 2011) focuses on the relationship between power and identity in black performance cultures to reimagine black life and ways of being. Darkening Mirrors won the MLA William Sanders Scarborough Prize and Honorable Mention at the ATHE Book Award.

Her current book project studies violence and affect in millennial black urban performance cultures in Los Angeles. She is co-editor of the NYU Book Series Performance and American Culture. Professor Batiste is also a creative writer, performer, and supporter of the arts.