• Oliva R. Polk
• Yale University, American and African American Studies

Olivia R. Polk (she/they) is a PhD candidate in American studies, African American studies, and Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies at Yale University. Her dissertation, “‘We Can Dream the Dark:’ Black Lesbianism and the Ethics of Black Queerness” takes up Black lesbian’s practices of poetic, aesthetic, and political experimentalism in that late 20th century, arguing that that these innovations can be understood as the basis for a system of ethics that has been applied to black queer radicalism throughout the past forty years. Polk’s work spans archives of literature, performance, and ephemera, and historical flash-points including the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the so-called “transgender tipping point.” In addition to her research and teaching, she is a member of the What Would and HIV Doula Do Collective (WWHIVDD). Her writing has been published in TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, and Women’s Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal.

Speaking In:

• Radical Love and Black Queer Histories