Scott Poulson-Bryant

Scott Poulson-Bryant is a cultural historian and critic. His main areas of specialization are African American popular culture and Performance Studies, with teaching and research focuses on Hollywood film, black popular music, 20th and 21st century U.S. drama, genre fiction, gender and sexuality studies, and creative nonfiction writing.

He received his B.A. in American Civilization from Brown University and his M.A in English and Ph.D. in American Studies from Harvard, where he also taught in the Program in History and Literature and received numerous certificates of distinction in teaching.

His research has appeared in The Journal of Popular Music Studies, American Studies, Palimpsest: A Journal on Women, Gender, and the Black International, and Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly, and he is currently finishing his monograph Everybody is a Star: Race, Glamour, and Citizenship in 1970s US Popular Culture.

Prior to academia, he worked as a journalist, publishing several articles in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, and The Village Voice, among other publications, and he was one of the founding editors of VIBE Magazine. His books include HUNG: A Meditation on the Measure of Black Men in America (Doubleday) and The VIPs: A Novel (Broadway/Random House).

Education

• Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) Harvard University (2009 — 2016)
• Master’s Degree Harvard University
• Bachelor’s Degree Brown University (2007 — 2008)