Biography
C. Riley Snorton is a cultural theorist who focuses on racial, sexual and transgender histories and cultural productions in Africa and the Diaspora. He is the author of Nobody Is Supposed to Know: Black Sexuality on the Down Low (University of Minnesota Press, 2014) and Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity (University of Minnesota Press, 2017), winner of the John Boswell Prize from the American Historical Association, the William Sanders Scarborough Prize from the Modern Language Association, the Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Nonfiction, the Sylvia Rivera Award in Transgender Studies from the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies, and an honorable mention from the American Library Association Stonewall Book Award Committee.
Snorton is the co-editor of Saturation: Race, Art and the Circulation of Value (MIT Press/New Museum, 2020) with Hentyle Yapp and The Flesh of the Matter: A Critical Forum on Hortense Spillers (Vanderbilt University Press, 2024) with Margo Natalie Crawford. He has authored numerous articles and book chapters, and guest edited three special issues on topics ranging from media reform to Black sexuality and hip hop to Black trans studies. In January, Snorton’s co-authored book, A Black Queer History of the United States (Beacon Press, 2026) with Darius Bost is set for release. Snorton is currently working on his third single-author monograph, Black Trans Matters, which extends and proffers theories, practices, and material reflections on global black trans life. Working at the conjuncture of Black ecocriticism and trans studies, Black Trans Matters engages with questions of historicity, extraction, representability, and transformation. Snorton is jointly appointed with the Institute for the Study of Sexuality and Gender at Columbia University.
