Dwight A. McBride is a leading scholar of race and literary studies. McBride earned a bachelor’s degree in English, with a concentration in African American studies, from Princeton University, and a master’s degree and PhD in English from the University of California, Los Angeles. McBride currently serves as the Gerald Early Distinguished Professor of African and African American Studies & Senior Advisor to the Chancellor at Washington University in St. Louis.
McBride is widely known for his academic achievements and his innovative, interdisciplinary approach to university leadership. Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2022, McBride has written numerous books and edited volumes exploring race, Black studies, sexuality and identity politics including James Baldwin Now, Impossible Witnesses: Truth Abolitionism, and Slave Testimony, Black Like Us: A Century of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual African American Fiction, and Why I Hate Abercrombie and Fitch: Essays on Race and Sexuality. He is a two-time Lambda Literary Award winner and in 2003, was awarded the Monette/Horowitz Trust Achievement Award for research combating homophobia. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities have all supported McBride’s research.
He was previously President and University Professor at The New School, and served as Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs at Emory University. He has also held leadership roles at Northwestern University and the University of Illinois at Chicago.
McBride is co-founder and co-editor of the annual open-access journal James Baldwin Review, and a founding co-editor of “The New Black Studies Series” at the University of Illinois Press, which has published more than 50 titles. He is also a founding co-director of the Academic Leadership Institute, a partnership with the University of Michigan that supports development of future academic leaders who are committed to advancing diversity and inclusion in the academy.