Christopher Valentine

Research Interests: Black Queer Studies, Black Feminism, Archival Studies, HIV/AIDS Scholarship

Bio: Christopher Valentine (he/him) is a first year PhD student in the African American Studies and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies departments at Yale University. Christopher’s research interests include black queer studies, literary studies, black feminist thought, archival studies, and HIV/AIDS scholarship. His research places specific focus on the writings of black gay men during the onset of the HIV/AIDS crisis during the 1980s and early 1990s.

He completed his BA in African and African Diaspora Studies at Kennesaw State University in 2021 and an MA in the Humanities at the University of Chicago in 2022. His MA thesis “This Bridge Called My Grave: The Writings of Essex Hemphill” was awarded the “2022 Best MA Thesis” prize by the University of Chicago’s Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture. In this paper, he uses Hemphill’s writings on death and dying to interrogate black queer strategies of survival, archival permanence, subjecthood, and sociality. Prior to Yale, Christopher worked as the Modern Manuscripts and Archives Intern at the Newberry Library and Circulation Supervisor at the University of Chicago’s Regenstein Library.