John E. Drabinski is Professor in the Department of African American and Africana Studies, with a joint appointment in the Department of English. His writing and teaching focus on the philosophical dimensions of the Black Atlantic intellectual tradition, with particular emphasis on postcolonial theory, the francophone Caribbean, and expressive culture in the United States. 

He has published a number of books, including most recently Glissant and the Middle Passage: Philosophy, Beginning, Abyss (Minnesota 2019) and Levinas and the Postcolonial: Race, Nation, Other (Edinburgh 2012), which was awarded the Frantz Fanon Book Prize from the Caribbean Philosophical Association. He has edited books and journal issues dedicated to key figures in Atlantic thought, including Frantz Fanon, Jean-Luc Godard, James Baldwin, and Édouard Glissant, as well as dozens of articles on themes of memory, language, culture, and politics. 

In fall of 2025, three of his single authored books will be published: So Unimaginable a Price: Baldwin and the Black Atlantic (Northwestern 2025), Atlantic Theory: On the Vicissitudes of Relation (Edinburgh 2025), and At the Margins of Nihilism: Deconstruction and Social Death (Fordham 2025). 

He is currently at work on a book length study of music and critical theory entitled Who Can Stand the Rain? Soul Music as Deconstructive Practice.

Along with department faculty member Ashley Newby and Brie Gorrell, doctoral candidate in English, he co-hosts The Black Studies Podcast (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-black-studies-podcast/id1745568685), which documents the history and future of the field of Black Studies from the perspective of students, professors, artists, and activists.Wwith Michael Sawyer (University of Pittsburgh), he is both co-editor of Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy (https://jffp.pitt.edu) and co-editor of the book series “Global Black Critical Thought” on Cambridge University Press (https://www.cambridge.org/core/publications/elements/global-black-critical-thought)

Drabinski holds an A.B. (1991) in Philosophy and English from Seattle University and a M.A. (1993) and PhD (1996) in Philosophy from University of Memphis, where he was trained in post-structuralist thought and the foundations of critical race theory. He was formerly Charles Hamilton Houston 1915 Professor of Black Studies at Amherst College and was a fellow at The W.E.B. Du Bois Institute at Harvard University in 2013-1014. 

He maintains a professional website jdrabinski.com, at which you can read about his research interests, teaching experience, and current writing projects.