Uri McMillan


Uri McMillan is an American humanities academic whose research interests include performance studies, black cultural studies, aesthetics, contemporary art, popular culture and queer theory from a cultural history perspective. As of 2016, he is an assistant professor in the Department of English at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Education

McMillan received his Ph.D. in African-American studies & American studies from Yale University in 2009.

Books

Embodied Avatars: Genealogies of Black Feminist Art and Performance, McMillan's first book, studies the exclusion of black female performers from the historiography of contemporary performance art. Through case studies focusing on Joice Heth, Ellen Craft, Adrian Piper, Howardena Pindell, Simone Leigh and Nicki Minaj, McMillan argues that there is a long history of black female performers who use the avatar to embrace their objecthood, modifying the image of bodies through artistic production. McMillan has also published articles and given public lectures about Janelle Monáe in a similar vein.

Articles