E. Patrick Johnson is the Carlos Montezuma Professor of Performance Studies and African American Studies at Northwestern University. A scholar, artist, and activist, Johnson has performed nationally and internationally and has published widely in the area of race, gender, sexuality and performance. Johnson is a prolific performer and scholar, and an inspiring teacher, whose research and artistry has greatly impacted African American studies, performance studies, and sexuality studies. He is the author of four award-winning books, Appropriating Blackness: Performance and the Politics of Authenticity (Duke UP, 2003), Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South—An Oral History (University of North Carolina UP, 2008) and Black. Queer. Southern. Women.—An Oral History (University of North Carolina Press, 2018) and the recently published, Honeypot: Black Southern Women Who Love Women (Duke UP, 2019). He is the editor of Cultural Struggles: Performance, Ethnography, Praxis by Dwight Conquergood (Michigan UP, 2013) and No Tea, No Shade: New Writings in Black Queer Studies (Duke UP, 2016) and co-editor (with Mae G. Henderson) of Black Queer Studies—A Critical Anthology (Duke UP, 2005) and (with Ramon Rivera-Servera) of solo/black/woman: scripts, interviews, and essays (Northwestern UP, 2013) and Blacktino Queer Performance (Duke UP, 2016). Johnson’s performance work dovetails with his written work. His staged reading, “Pouring Tea: Black Gay Men of the South Tell Their Tales” has toured to over 100 college campuses from 2006 to the present. In 2009, he translated the staged reading into a full-length stage play, Sweet Tea—The Play, which premiered in Chicago at About Face Theater in 2010, and also had runs at Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia, the Durham Arts Council, and the National Black Theatre Festival. Johnson won a Black Theatre Alliance Award for Best Solo Performance for the show. He is also the co-executive producer of the documentary film, Making Sweet Tea, which premiered in Chicago and Atlanta in 2019 and is currently making the film festival circuit. In 2010 he was inducted into the Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame.
