Cogut Institute for the Humanities

Brianna Eaton is a fourth-year doctoral candidate in the Department of Africana Studies. She earned a B.A. in film and media studies and Black studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a M.A. in cinema studies from New York University. Her dissertation project examines symbols of Blackness in film and television in the 21st century, focusing on how visual markers of race link representations of Blackness across political borders and geographies. Black production in film and television in the contemporary moment is prolific and widely accessible, making it deeply embedded in and responsive to fractured, relational, and affective intraracial discourses. She examines Black productions from several countries to highlight how Black creators disrupt, reinforce, and negotiate Blackness, contending with the production of Blackness as art, entertainment, and commercial enterprise and as a political project aimed at undoing centuries of misrepresentation.