Dr. Stephen Best

Biography

Stephen Best's scholarship encompasses a variety of fields including American and African-American literature, culture, cinema, technology, rhetoric, law, and critical theory. His research interests closely align with broader interrogations of recent literary and critical practices, particularly in the critical nexus of slavery and historiography. Best's work explores the intersections of maintaining authority over the slave past and the complexities of black life, particularly through alternative frameworks of literary study. He has edited several special issues of the journal Representations, focusing on themes such as the political projects of undoing the slave past and symptomatic reading limits in literary criticism. Best is the author of influential works including "Fugitive's Properties: Law and Poetics of Possession" and "Like Blackness, Belonging, Aesthetic Life." His research has been supported by notable foundations such as the Mellon Foundation and the Ford Foundation. He has held prestigious fellowships and professorships, including the Mary Bundy Scott Professorship at Williams College and the Whitney J. Oates Fellowship at Princeton University.

Research Interests