Blake, Felice

Associate Professor

Education: 

PhD University of California, Santa Cruz 2008
MA University of Oslo 1999

Dr. Blake specializes in twentieth-century African American literature, African American studies, and critical analyses of gender and sexuality. Her research interests are situated within the fields of literature, cultural studies, Black Studies, and gender studies.

Contact

Office: 

South Hall 2708

Office Hours: 

Spring 2020 - Tues. 10:00 am - noon or contact via email.

FAX: 

(805) 893-4622

Email: 

fblake@english.ucsb.edu

Mailing Address: 

English Department
UC Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, CA 93106-9580

Fields/Affiliations: 

American Cultures and Global Contexts
Hemispheric South/s
Literature and the Mind
Creative Writing
Cultural Studies
Literary Theory
Theories of Gender and Sexualities
American Race and Ethnic Studies

Highlights

Recent News: 

Distinguished Teaching Award 2016-17.

Publications

Books: 

Black Love, Black Hate: Intimate Antagonisms in African American Literature (Ohio State University Press 2018).

Felice Blake, Paula Ioanide, and Alison Reed, Antiracism Inc.: Why the Way We Talk about Racial Justice Matters (Punctum Books 2019).

 

Articles & Chapters: 

Articles

"Intimate Antagonisms and the Meaning of Resistance in Gayl Jones's Corregidora" SOULS: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture, and Society 19.2 (2017): 144-161.

"What Does It Mean to be Black?: Gendered Redefinitions of Interethnic Solidarity in Piri Thomas' Down These Mean Streets" African American Review 51.2 (Summer 2018): 95-110.

"Global mass violence: examining racial and gendered violence in the twilight of multiculturalism" Ethnic and Racial Studies 40.14 (2017): 2615-2633.

Chapters

"Why Black LIves Matters in the Humanities." In Seeing Race Again: Countering Colorblindness Across the Disciplines, eds Kimberle Williams Crenshaw, Luke Charles Harris, Daniel Martinez HoSang, and George Lipsitz (Oakland: University of California Press 2019): 307-326.

Felice Blake and Paula Ioanide, "Antiracsim Incorporated" in Antiracism Inc.: Why the Way We Talk about Racial Justice Matters (Punctum Books 2019): 17-39.

"How Does Cultural Criticism 'Work' in the Age of Antiracist Incorporation?" in Antiracism Inc.: Why the Way We Talk about Racial Justice Matters (Punctum Books 2019): 199-228.

"Antiracism Works: Interview with Diana Zuniga" in Antiracism Inc.: Why the Way We Talk about Racial Justice Matters (Punctum Books 2019): 111-122.

The BSE Collective, "Black Sexual Economies: An Introduction" in Black Sexual Economies: Race and Sex in a Culture of Capital (Urbana: University of Illinois Press 2019): 1-11.

"Framing the Video Vixen: Intraracial Readings of Unruly Desire" in Black Sexual Economies: Race and Sex in a Culture of Capital (Urbana: University of Illinois Press 2019): 166-184.

Other Publications: 

"Black in Norway" Al Jazeera August 31, 2011.

Projects

Projects (Initiatives, Grants, etc.): 

UC-HBCU Initiative 2019-2020: The Creative Work of Critical Writing  with Tougaloo College

https://www.ucop.edu/uc-hbcu-initiative/funded-proposals/index.html

Abolition Reading Group

Lectures

Selected Lectures: 

"The Poetics of Liberation: Abolition Democracy" TedX UCSB (June 1, 2019).

Julie Carlson and Felice Blake "Just Friends" (Special Seminar) North American Society for the Study of Romanticism (Brown University) 2018.

 

Recent Courses Taught

Quarter Course Title
Summer A 2020 ENGL 134AA Studies in the Literature of Cultural and Ethnic Communities in the United States
Spring 2020 ENGL 197 Black Aesthetics
Spring 2020 ENGL 191 Afro-American Fiction and Criticism, 1920's to the present
Winter 2020 ENGL 50 Introduction to U.S. Minority Literature
Spring 2019 ENGL 50 Introduction to U.S. Minority Literature
Spring 2019 ENGL 265FD Friends Across Differences
Summer A 2018 ENGL 38B Introduction to African-American Literature (Part II)
Summer A 2018 ENGL 50 Intro to U.S. Minority Literature
Spring 2018 ENGL 50S Seminar on Intro to U.S. Minority Literature
Spring 2018 ENGL 50 Introduction to U.S. Minority Literature
Spring 2018 ENGL 165PL Prison Literature
Fall 2017 ENGL 140 Contemporary American Literature
Summer B 2017 ENGL 50 Intro to U.S. Minority Literature
Summer B 2017 ENGL 38B Introduction to African-American Literature (Part II)
Spring 2017 ENGL 50 Intro to U.S. Minority Literature
Spring 2017 ENGL 165PL Prison Literature
Spring 2017 ENGL 50S Seminar on Intro to U.S. Minority Literature
Winter 2017 ENGL 191 Afro-American Fiction and Criticism, 1920's to the present
Summer B 2016 ENGL 38B Introduction to African-American Literature (Part II)
Summer B 2016 ENGL 50 Introduction to US Minority Literature