GerShun Avilez

GerShun Avilez is Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and a professor of English.

Dean Avilez holds a PhD in English from the University of Pennsylvania, an MA in English from Temple University, and a BA in English from Hendrix College. An award-winning teacher and writer, Dr. Avilez is a prominent cultural studies scholar who specializes in contemporary African American and Black Diasporic literature and visual culture. He is the author of two books: Radical Aesthetics and Modern Black Nationalism and Black Queer Freedom. He is also the co-editor of The Norton Anthology of American Literature: 1945-Present, 10th Edition. Currently, he is completing a book on art and healthcare and editing a volume on global Black cultural expression.  Throughout his scholarship, he works in the fields of political radicalism, spatial theory, gender studies, and medical humanities. He was the recipient of the Poorvu Award for Excellence in Interdisciplinary Teaching in 2011 (Yale University). Outside of his research and teaching, he was an elected member of the MLA Delegate Assembly, and he served on the Program Committee for the annual convention of the American Studies Association (ASA).

Prior to his arrival at CLA, Dean Avilez served as professor of English and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the College of Arts & Humanities at the University of Maryland, College Park. He also held affiliate faculty appointments in the Department of African American Studies and the Harriet Tubman Department of Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies, and was the founding director of the Frederick Douglass Center for Leadership Through the Humanities.