ShaDawn Battle

Chicago native, ShaDawn Battle earned her PhD in 2017 from The University of Cincinnati.  Her research interests include African American Literature, Afro-Diasporic Studies, Black Feminist/Womanist Studies, Critical Race Epistemology, and Hip-Hop Studies. Dr. Battle has taught a wide array of African American Literature courses, with emphasis on the Black musical tradition, state-sanctioned violence, and Black liberation politics.  She has also taught courses centering the lived experiences of Black women—examining topics such as the invisibility and hypervisibility of Black women and girls in literature, media, medicine, and the “justice” system. Dr. Battle is now interested in expanding her teaching portfolio to include courses on African literary studies and postcolonial theory.

Dr. Battle writes on anti-Black politics and Black masculine and feminine politics, intersecting hip hop, anti-colonial theories, critical race theory, and literature that spans the Black Diaspora.  She is currently composing a manuscript on Chicago Footwork, which is not merely a Chicago street dance and culture, but an embodied vernacular language of resistance. She is also directing and producing a documentary on the dance form (of which she is a practitioner), titled, Footwork Saved My Life: The Evolution of Chicago Footwork.  Dr. Battle is a lover of dolphins, dogs (especially her daschund, Jackson El-Chapo), James Baldwin, Nipsey Hussle, basketball, Jay-Z, and family.