Susana Morris
Associate Professor and Associate Chair
- School of Literature, Media, and Communication
- ADVANCE IAC
Overview
Susana M. Morris is a Black feminist scholar and a cultural critic. She is an associate professor of Literature, Media, and Communication at Georgia Tech and the co-founder of The Crunk Feminist Collective. A former Anschutz Distinguished Fellow at Princeton University and Norman Freeling Visiting Professor at the University of Michigan, she is the author of Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler. Her other works include Close Kin and Distant Relatives: The Paradox of Respectability in Black Women's Literature, the co-edited collection The Crunk Feminist Collection, and the co-authored young adult handbook Feminist AF: The Guide to Crushing Girlhood. Her writing has appeared in journals such as The Black Scholar, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, and Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, and she has been featured in venues such as NPR, the BBC, the New York Times, the New Yorker, the Washington Post, and Essence.
She is currently at work on several projects, including a co-edited companion to Octavia E. Butler, a monograph on the enduring significance of the Black vampire in literature and popular culture, and a literary history of Black autodidacts.
- Ph.D. English; Certificate, Women’s Studies, Emory University, 2007
- B.A. English, Mount Holyoke College, magna cum laude, 2002
Distinctions:
- Faculty Excellence in Research Award, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2025
- Principal Investigator, The Earthseed Project (Mellon Foundation Funded), 2024-2027
- GT DILAC-A Grant Award for "Earthseed: Afrofuturism and Black Livability," 2021-2022
- GVU/IPaT/GTRI Seed Grant Award for Healing Justice: Co-Designing for Black Communities, Georgia Institute of Technology, Spring 2021
- “Thanks For Being a Great Teacher!” Award, Center for Teaching and Learning, Georgia Institute of Technology, Spring 2018, Summer 2018, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Spring 2020.
- DILAC Fellow, Georgia Institute of Technology, Spring 2017
- PULSE Community Building Award, Harvard Black Law Student Association, 2017
Interests
African American Literature
Gender Studies
Media Studies
Science Fiction Studies
Black Media Studies
Gender Studies and Black Feminist Theory
Race, Climate Change, and the Anthropocene
20th and 21st Century African American and Caribbean Literature and Theory
- Digital Media
- Literary and Cultural Studies
- Gender
- Feminism
Courses
- GMC-6001: Global Media & Cultures
- LMC-2200: Intro to Gender Studies
- LMC-3208: African-Amer Lit/Cult
- LMC-3214: Science Fiction
- LMC-3226: Octavia Butler
- LMC-3405: Media Culture & Society
- LMC-3453: Afrofuturism
- LMC-4102: Senior Thesis
- LMC-6800: DM MS Project Course
- LMC-8803: Special Topics
Publications
Recent Publications
Books
- Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler
Date: August 2025
Journal Articles
- “The Black Speculative Tradition”
In: Studies in the Novel. (Vol. 56 No. 4) [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2024
Journal - Editors
- “Introduction” and “A New Era in Afrofuturism: An Interview with Sheree Renée Thomas”
In: The Black Scholar (Special Issue on Black Women in Speculative Fiction) [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2024
Chapters
- "Ethno-Gothic Cinema"
In: The Oxford Handbook of New Science Fiction Cinema [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2023
- "Idlewild: Afrofuturism and the Hip Hop Musical in the Twenty-First Century"
In: An OutKast Reader: Essays on Race, Gender, and the Postmodern South [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2021
All Publications
Books
- Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler
Date: August 2025
- Close Kin and Distant Relatives: The Paradox of Respectability in Black Women’s Literature
Date: 2014
Journal Articles
- “The Black Speculative Tradition”
In: Studies in the Novel. (Vol. 56 No. 4) [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2024
Journal - Editors
- “Introduction” and “A New Era in Afrofuturism: An Interview with Sheree Renée Thomas”
In: The Black Scholar (Special Issue on Black Women in Speculative Fiction) [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2024
Chapters
- "Ethno-Gothic Cinema"
In: The Oxford Handbook of New Science Fiction Cinema [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2023
- "Idlewild: Afrofuturism and the Hip Hop Musical in the Twenty-First Century"
In: An OutKast Reader: Essays on Race, Gender, and the Postmodern South [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2021
Updated: Feb 13th, 2026 at 6:18 PM