E. Patrick Johnson's work has greatly impacted African American studies, performance studies, and gender and sexuality studies. He is the author of several books, including Appropriating Blackness: Performance and the Politics of Authenticity (2003), Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South — An Oral History (2008), Black. Queer. Southern. Women. —An Oral History (2018), and Honeypot: Black Southern Women Who Love Women (2019), in addition to a number of edited and co-edited collections, essays, and plays. Johnson is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Leadership
E. Patrick Johnson is dean of the School of Communication and the Annenberg University Professor at Northwestern University.
A Message from Dean Johnson
When you come to the School of Communication, you are entering a community.
You’ll find it in your cohort, your department, and your individual classes. Our faculty will challenge you but also provide support to ensure that you flourish. Our administration is tasked with creating an equitable, representative, and inclusive home to each and every Wildcat. Our student body demonstrates that commitment to community in all the innovative, collaborative work you do. We as professors and leaders will listen to you, help you chart your academic course, and work with you to find resources to attend to your mental health and wellbeing. This is how communities succeed—through small, helpful actions that help us all thrive.
We’re creating a diverse, equitable, and inclusive home for our community where each voice is valued and given credence.”
You will get the foundational elements of your studies in the classroom but also the time, support, and resources to explore your chosen field and develop a creative and scholarly voice through practice-based opportunities. My goal as dean is to ensure that each of you is experiencing the breadth of our school but also the maximum of your potential. This is done by fostering new, and augmenting existing, partnerships.
But partnerships don’t last if they’re not built on a foundation of mutual respect, appreciation, and understanding. I want you to know that we’re creating a diverse, equitable, and inclusive home for our community where each voice is valued and given credence. I want you to know that you are landing in a supportive place where faculty and administration want you to succeed. I want you to find in the collaborative process that it’s better to create than compete. I want you to be inspired to explore, to fall down, to get back up, and get back at it.
Welcome to the SoC community.
— Dean E. Patrick Johnson, School of Communication Annenberg University Professor