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Michael Sawyer

  • Professor, Director of Graduate Studies

Michael E. Sawyer is Professor of African American Literature and Culture in the Department of English at the University of Pittsburgh, where he also serves as Director of Graduate Studies. He is a faculty affiliate of Africana Studies and Director of the Graduate Program in Cultural Studies, as well as an Electus Faculty Fellow in the University’s David C. Fredricks Honors College.

Before joining the University of Pittsburgh, Professor Sawyer served as Assistant Professor of Race, Ethnicity, and Migration Studies and English at Colorado College, where he founded and directed the Africana Intellectual Project. He also held an appointment as Distinguished Visiting Professor of English and the Fine Arts at the United States Air Force Academy.

A scholar, author, and artist, Professor Sawyer has published four monographs: An Africana Philosophy of Temporality: Homo Liminalis (Palgrave, 2018); Black Minded: The Political Philosophy of Malcolm X (Pluto, 2020); Sir Lewis (Legacy Lit/Hachette, 2024); and The Door of No Return: Being-as-Black (Temple University Press, 2026). Sir Lewis, a cultural biography of Afro-British Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton, has been translated into twelve languages and is an international bestseller in its category.

In addition to his academic work, Professor Sawyer is an artist in residence at ONX Studios in New York City and Athens, Greece. He is co-editor of the Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy and serves on the Executive Committee of Political Concepts: A Critical Lexicon.

Professor Sawyer holds a B.S. from the United States Naval Academy, an M.A. in Comparative Literature and a Ph.D. in Africana Studies from Brown University, and an M.A. in International Security Policy from the University of Chicago’s Committee on International Relations.

Education & Training

  • United States Naval Academy, Bachelor of Science (Political Science)
  • University of Chicago, MA (Committee on International Relations)
  • Brown University, MA (Comparative Literature)
  • Brown University, PhD (Africana Studies)

Representative Publications

Books in Press

Books in Preparation

  • The Door of No Return: A Phenomenology of Black(ness)
  • Check Point-Lima (Under Review) Literary Fiction
  • If Holden Caulfield Was Black (Literary Fiction)

Single-Authored Articles/Reviews/Chapters in Press

  • “Shattering Perspectives” a review of a Teaching Collection of African Ceramics installed at Gregory Allicar Museum of Art at Colorado State University African Arts Journal (Forthcoming)
  • “Crépuscle with RA Judy: A Review of Sentient Flesh: Thinking in Disorder, Poiēsis in Black” New Formations: A Journal of Culture / Theory / Politics (Forthcoming)
  • Book Review: “Peniel Joseph’s The Sword and the Shield: The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.” American Political Thought
  • “Post-Truth, Social Media, and the ‘Real’ as Phantasm” chapter in the volume Relativism and Post-Truth in Contemporary Society: Possibilities and Challenges edited by Steve Fuller, Mikael Stenmark, and Ulf Zackariasson Palgrave Press (ISBN 978- 3319965581) September 2018
  • “Temporalità radicale, realismo fittizio e rivoluzione come contesto” Filosofia politica. 3 Dec 2017. ISBN: 0394-7297. Pp. 445-458
  • “Undoing the Phaedrus: Melville’s Re-Reading of Plato” The C.L.R. James Journal November 2017 ISBN: 2167-4256
  • “Two Silenced Instruments” Front Row Center: Photography by Larry Hulst. Exhibition Catalog: Fine Arts Center, Colorado Springs: 2017
  • “Sacrifice” Political Concepts,October 2015
  • Book Review: Archipelago: A Novel by, Monique Roffey Small Axe Salon: 15, Fall 2015
  • “Critical Intervention/Review of Keith Sandiford, Theorizing a Colonial Caribbean- Atlantic Imaginary: Sugar and Obeah” The C.L.R. James Journal 20:1, Fall 2014 (pp. 17-24)

Book Chapters/Articles in Preparation or Under Review

  • “Melville’s Meditation on the Long Shipwreck of the Middle Passage” book chapter in Companion to Melville edited by Wyn Kelley and Christopher Ohge, Wiley Blackwell (Forthcoming Fall 2021)

Research Interests

Africana Political Thought and Philosophy; Post-Colonial Studies; Critical Race Theory; Political Theory; Political Philosophy; Naval History and Tactics; Revolt, Revolution & Rebellion; Literary Theory & Criticism; History of the American, French, & Haitian Revolutions; Slavery; Mass Incarceration; Creative Writing; African American Music: The Italian Renaissance

CV

PDF icon michael_sawyer_cv.pdf