Chase Black – Director & Academic Guide

Hometown: Berkeley, CA

Pronouns: he/him/his

Professional interests: I’m excited to help students navigate life at Duke with greater awareness of how their intellectual development and overall well-being are intertwined, with the broader goal of supporting each student’s personal fulfillment means as this evolves over time.  

Education

• Ph.D. in Literature, University of California, San Diego  
• M.A. in English, Brown University
• B.A. in English (focus in American Literature), University of California, Los Angeles

Intellectual interests: American music and Americana; Feminism; Photography; Comedy; Camp; Race, colonialism, and popular entertainment in the U.S.

Summary of previous professional experience:
I have a background in teaching and research in the humanities and cultural studies. After completing my PhD at UC San Diego I was a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California Los Angeles in the “Cultures in Transnational Perspective” Program, where I taught courses in the English Department and continued research I had begun in my graduate work on music and other popular entertainments in Hawaii–from the 1840s through ongoing US colonialism in Hawaii in the 20th century. I’ve taught at UC San Diego, UCLA, and the University of Southern California, and my courses included critical writing, multiethnic literature, postcolonial literature and US colonialism and popular culture.

Fun fact:
I was a music major during my first year of college and studied French horn performance.

What advice do you have for navigating college? 
It’s really important to find a sense of community wherever you are in your journey. That support structure is invaluable to shaping who you are and who you’re becoming. Finding a faculty mentor with whom you can discuss your interests and how to translate those into a professional path is also vital to your intellectual development.