Cherod Johnson is a recent alum of our Ph.D. program and current Postdoctoral Research Associate at Brown University in the Center for Environmental Humanities.
Where are you now and what are you up to? Tell us about your postdoc.
I am currently a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Brown University in the Center for Environmental Humanities, and the experience has been genuinely transformative. The position has afforded me the rare luxury to immerse myself deeply in research, teaching, and publishing. The mentorship I have received from Professor Macarena Gomez-Barris has been invaluable. She has been an exceptional steward in helping me see both the utility and the viability of my work within the field of environmental humanities, a field that is often capacious and diffuse, while also clarifying the strength of my work at the intersection of literature and media culture.
The Center for Environmental Humanities operates less as a traditional department and more as an intellectual institute, bringing together scholars from sociology, anthropology, English, and related fields. Being immersed in this interdisciplinary environment has allowed me to witness how colleagues approach questions of the environment from multiple vantage points, which has significantly sharpened my own thinking. As a result, my commitment to environmental literature, culture, and media has deepened.
This intellectual growth is reflected in my teaching. I recently taught a course titled “The Black Outdoors,” which guided students through questions of Black exteriority and environmental exposure through film, literature, and visual culture, including films such as Moonlight and Daughters of the Dust. In the coming semester, I will teach "Bottom Ecologies," a course that examines how Black queer communities have reimagined debasement and shame, theorizing the bottom as both a spatial and conceptual site, and placing the erotic and the environment in sustained conversation.
Brown has given me the opportunity to intellectually stretch and experiment in ways I did not previously imagine possible. This freedom has been foundational to my development as a scholar, teacher, and public intellectual. I’m so excited and grateful!
What in your time in African Diaspora Studies at UC Berkeley best prepared you for your postdoc position?
Being trained in Black Studies has shaped me into a deeply interdisciplinary and ethically grounded scholar. My work approaches environmental humanities through sustained attention to race, queerness, sex, and power, with a strong foundation in cultural studies, particularly literature and documentary film. This training has allowed me to enter conversations in environmental humanities that have often been dominated by geography, anthropology, or sociology, while bringing a different archive and a different set of questions to the field. Rather than simply applying sociological frameworks of site-based research, my work foregrounds Black environmental literature and cultural production as sites of critical theory in their own right. The interdisciplinary training I received at the University of California, Berkeley, alongside a committee that encouraged intellectual risk rather than disciplinary confinement, was foundational to my scholarly formation and continues to shape my teaching and research. I am especially indebted to thinkers such as Barbara Christian and VèVè Clark (names that constantly circulated on the sixth floor), whose work insists that Black writers have long theorized the environment through literature, poetry, and narrative, even when that work has not been recognized as such.
What courses or seminars shaped the way you now teach or frame your research?
The course "Black + Queer," co-taught by Professor Darieck Scott and Professor Nadia Ellis, shaped me not only intellectually but relationally. What I remember most vividly is how aware they were that they were bringing together students trained across literature, Black Studies, ethnic studies, education, performance studies, and film and media. Some of my closest friendships emerged from that classroom!!! Everyone arrived with different investments, different strengths, and different curiosities, and the course never tried to flatten those differences. Instead, it made space for them.
Because the syllabus was so capacious in its range of genres and media, everyone could find an entry point. Some students were more drawn to literary texts, others to film, performance, or visual culture. Rather than privileging one mode of reading, the class encouraged us to think across texts and methods, to sit with what felt unfamiliar, and to learn from one another’s expertise. I also remember how intentional Professors Scott and Ellis were about framing texts before opening discussion. They often explained why a text mattered, what intervention it was making in the field, and how it pushed against or extended existing traditions. That practice stayed with me. It modeled the idea that a syllabus is not neutral but an argument about a field in motion. I carry this directly into my own teaching.
Even in discussion-based courses, I usually begin with a brief ten-minute framing that I think of as offering students “party favors.” I share handouts that explain why a text is on the syllabus, what intervention I see it making, and how the author’s (inter)disciplinary training shapes their method. I think we too rarely talk about scholars as trained subjects, and yet method, style, and argument are deeply informed by where and how someone was trained. I remember, for example, how illuminating it was when Professor Scott discussed Jennifer Nash’s legal training while we were reading her work on pornography. Understanding her legal background helped explain the structure of her arguments, the precision of her prose, and why the writing felt more formal compared to work emerging from performance studies or cultural studies.
What faculty wisdom or mentorship do you still carry with you? How has your work evolved since starting the postdoc?
I lean heavily on the wisdom and mentorship of Professor Ula Taylor. One core lesson I extend from her is that teaching is an expression of love for blackness and black people. It’s an act of intergenerational care and stewardship. This practice informs how I engage with students and guide them through their projects from start to finish. For example, one practice I employ with my students is having them write down on a note card a debate in Black Studies that they can't shake. I do this because, echoing Ula, I find that most students end up pursuing a project that deeply animates them - an object or question that keeps them up at night. These projects sustain them over time, and students who are passionate about a particular question or object rarely experience writer’s block.
I am also deeply shaped by the mentorship of Professor Nikki Jones, whose teaching models intellectual rigor alongside generosity and care. I witnessed firsthand as a teaching assistant how she guided students in shaping and narrowing their projects, when they arrived with projects full of ideas. She consistently reminded students and ME that one does not need to resolve everything in one semester and that some chapters can be left for later work or even the book!!!
What are your future dreams and aspirations? Where do you hope your postdoc takes you?
My immediate goal is to complete a book manuscript and secure a tenure track position at a research university working at the intersection of environmental humanities, Black Studies, and queer studies. I am currently returning to my dissertation to shape a cohesive book project and develop a strong proposal, while expanding my archival scope. Alongside this work, I am also completing a novel, a queer coming of age ghost thriller that has already been drafted and circulated to a press (fingers crossed), and I am excited to see how it continues to evolve. All things considered, I remain committed to practices of care, including prayer, movement, meditation, and time outdoors.