Dr. Regina N. Bradley is a writer and researcher of African American Life and Culture. She is an alumna Nasir Jones HipHop Fellow (Harvard University, Spring 2016) and is the Assistant Professor of English and African Diaspora Studies at Kennesaw State University in Kennesaw, GA.
Dr. Bradley’s expertise and research interests include 20th and 21st Century African American Literature, hip hop culture, race and the contemporary U.S. South, and sound studies.
Her current book-length project, Chronicling Stankonia: OutKast and the Rise of the Hip Hop South (under contract, UNC Press), explores how Atlanta, GA hip hop duo OutKast influences renderings of the Black American South after the Civil Rights Movement. Dr. Bradley is also editing a collection of essays about OutKast for UGA Press.
She is the founder and host of OutKasted Conversations, a critically acclaimed dialogue series dedicated to thinking about the cultural and academic implications of the hip hop group OutKast. The project has been featured on Ebony, The New York Times, Musiqology, For Harriet, Huffington Post, and The Feminist Wire.
Her scholarship on popular culture and race is published in south: a scholarly journal, Black Camera, Meridians, Comedy Studies, ADA, Journal of Ethnic American Literature, Palimpsest, and Current Musicology. Additionally, Dr. Bradley’s commentary is featured on a range of news media outlets including Washington Post, NPR, NewsOne, SoundingOut!, and Creative Loafing Atlanta.
In May 2017 Dr. Bradley delivered a TEDx talk, “The Mountaintop Ain’t Flat,” about the significance of hip hop in bridging the American Black South to the present and future.
As a complement to her scholarly work, Dr. Bradley is a critically acclaimed fiction writer. Her fiction has been supported by Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop and Tin House Summer Workshop. Dr. Bradley’s short story, “Beautiful Ones,” was a 2017 Pushcart Prize nominee. Her first short story collection, Boondock Kollage: Stories from the Hip Hop South, was published in April 2017. Dr. Bradley’s fiction is also featured in BOAAT, Transition, Obsidian, Searching for Sycorax, and Oxford American.
