
Jacinta Saffold
Assistant Professor
University of Delaware
Memorial Hall Room 302
Newark, DE 19716
Biography
Jacinta R. Saffold specializes in 20th and 21st-century African American literature, Hip Hop
Studies, and the Digital Humanities. Her research and teaching interests include contemporary
Black bibliography, coming-of-age narratives, and cross-medium storytelling. Currently she is
working on her first manuscript, Books & Beats: The Cultural Kinship of Street Lit and Hip Hop,
which explores the intersections of hip-hop and bestselling novels written by African Americans
at the turn of the new millennium. In addition to Books & Beats, Saffold is developing “The
Essence Book Project,” a computational collection of popular African American literature
derived from the bestsellers’ list published in Essence Magazine; 1994-2010.
Saffold’s most recent scholarship includes a three-part interview series based on “The Essence
Book Project” sponsored by the Bibliographical Society of America. An edited version of the
series’ first interview “Black Bestselling Books and Bibliographical Concerns” appears in a
special issue of Criticism: A Quarterly for Literature and the Arts. Her work has also been
published in the Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the U.S. Journal, Black Perspectives, Cultural
Front.com, and Bloomsbury’s #MeToo and Literary Studies Reading, Writing, and Teaching
about Sexual Violence and Rape Culture. Saffold co-founded the Black Women’s Studies
Association. She is a member of the Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography, a past
Mellon/ACLS Public Fellow, a Mellon Mays fellow, the inaugural winner of the Dorothy Porter
Wesley Fellowship in Black critical bibliography, and a David Ruggles young book collectors of
color awardee. Her research has been supported by the Louisiana Board of Regents Award to
Artists and Scholars, The Institute for Citizens & Scholars (formerly the Woodrow Wilson
Foundation), the Black Book Interactive Project Scholars program, and the National Endowment
for the Humanities. She has also served as a higher education administrator in university
admission and diversity, equity & student success.
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