| Brittney Cooper | |
| Birth Place: | Ruston, Louisiana, U.S. |
| Education: | Howard University (BA) Emory University (MA, PhD) |
| Employer: | Rutgers University, New Brunswick |
| Occupation: | Author, pundit, cultural critic |
Brittney Cooper is a tenured professor of Women and Gender Studies, author, professor, activist, and cultural critic. Cooper is Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Africana Studies, and the Principal Investigator and Founding Director of the Race and Gender Equity (RAGE) Lab at Rutgers. Her areas of research and work include black women organizations, black women intellectuals, and hip-hop feminism.[1] In 2013 and 2014, she was named to the Root.com's Root 100, an annual list of top Black influencers.[2]
Cooper is from Ruston, Louisiana.
Cooper currently is a professor of women's and gender studies and Africana studies at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. She is a co-founder of the Crunk Feminist Collective and co-editor of the collection of essays of the same title, which explore intersectionality, African-American culture, and hip-hop feminism.[3] [4]
Cooper has written three books.
Her first book was Beyond Respectability: The Intellectual Thought of Race Women, published in 2017 by University of Illinois Press. A book review from National Public Radio (NPR) called Beyond Respectability "a work of crucial cultural study."[5] The book won the 2018 Merle Curti Prize for Best Book in U.S. Intellectual History from the Organization of American Historians. [6]
Cooper also co-authored and edited The Crunk Feminist Collection (published in 2017 by The Feminist Press at City University of New York) along with Susana M. Morris and Robin M. Boylorn. The book collection received positive acclaim from Publishers Weekly,[7] Kirkus Reviews,[8] Literary Hub,[9] and Ebony.[10] The collection is a series of essays that originated on the blog The Crunk Feminist Collective, which Cooper co-founded.[11]
In 2018, her book Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower was published by St. Martin's Press. In it, Cooper explores black feminism and anger, specifically the anger of black women, as a basis for revolutionary action.[12] Kirkus Reviews praised the writing, calling it "Sharp and always humane, Cooper’s book suggests important ways in which feminism needs to evolve for the betterment not just of black women, but society as a whole."[13]