Joshua Kamau Reason

Bio

Dr. Joshua K. Reason (they/them) is a transdisciplinary, multimodal scholar-artist from the Bay Area. Their work details Black : Indigenous performing and visual arts in the Americas as rehearsals for freedom beyond the limitations of modernity. Through ethnography, performance studies, cultural studies, and geography, they write and create towards new grammars for sexuality, intimacy, desire, and erotics. Their work has been published in The Black Scholar, The Journal of American Culture, The Journal of Black Sexuality and Relationships, and becoming undisciplined: a zine.

Dr. Reason is currently producing Brazil After Dark, a documentary about Black : Indigenous LGBTQIAPN+ artist in North-Northeast Brazil. As a recipient of the inaugural Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Innovation Fellowship, they traveled to eight different states in the region and interviewed over twenty artists. This project is an ongoing collaboration with Coletivo das Liliths (Collective of Liliths), an LGBTQIA+ theater group that aims to share the stories of those––past and present––at the racial, gender, sexual, and geographic margins of Brazilian society.

In addition to their international work, Dr. Reason serves local queer and trans communities of color. Most recently, they became a project lead for the Black, Indigenous, and Trans of Color Histories Lab, a growing collective of artists, academics, and organizers based in the United States. As a part of the Mellon Higher Learning Initiative, the Lab received a $460,000 grant to create programming, publications, and initiatives focused on trans of color historywork.

Dr. Reason earned their PhD in Africana Studies with a certificate in Experimental Ethnography at the University of Pennsylvania. They earned their MA in Latin American Studies with a portfolio in LGBTQ Studies at the University of Texas at Austin and their BA in Latin American Studies at Carleton College.

Academic Appointments

• Lecturer, Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies