​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.​​