Every school year brings new changes in Athens, and this year, one of them was the addition of Brian Stephens, a new assistant professor of African American Studies, interdisciplinary arts and media studies. Stephens joined the Ohio University faculty this past July and has already created a name for himself. Combining his passion for activism and education, he is actively creating an environment for students of all backgrounds to feel seen.
While completing his undergrad at California State University, Dominguez Hills and Humboldt State University, Stephens said he encountered explicit anti-Black violence and mistreatment, signaling to him to become more involved in activist circles. These groups led him to develop an interest in African American and Black studies, continuing to do graduate work at the University of California, Los Angeles.
“It was at Humboldt State University where I started to take seriously the Black intellectual tradition and activism, and that's partly because the student community was really invested in activism,” Stephens said. “It was where I really experienced a really pronounced racial alienation, so it was really important for me to organize with other students of color experiencing the same situation.”
Receiving his master’s degree in African American studies and Ph.D. in ethnic studies at the University of California, Riverside, Stephens began to take his knowledge across California, aiming to use his activist platform as a professor.
Originally from Southern California and mostly in the West, Stephens ventured to OU, wanting to bring his knowledge to a new student body. He enjoys teaching because of how he has been able to connect with students of color, as well as non-Black students, and show them how collective liberation is vital to becoming a more inclusive society.
“It's also important for me to reach non-Black students to let them know that our liberation is intertwined,” Stephens said. “To help them to disinvest in whiteness and to get them to know that whenever I bring up these particular issues, it's not an attack on white individuals. It's an attack on their investment in whiteness as a social category.”
Teaching courses such as Intro to African American Studies, Stephens is excited about the content he’s showing students. He has developed a curriculum that addresses topics such as the theory of Afro-pessimism and Virginia slave laws, the latter responsible for instilling white privilege into the culture of the United States.
“I’m teaching Intro to African American Studies,” Stephens said. “Some of the things that we've already touched on is the theory of Afro-pessimism. We're also looking at the Virginia slave laws and how those laws that were implemented after Bacon's Rebellion after a multiracial insurrection was threatened with Virginia aristocracy.”
Stephens is also focused on taking an intersectional analysis approach to rape culture in his classes, exploring the ways in which it affects queer, black and brown people. He is using the MAX series “I May Destroy You” as an example of this, following the aftermath of a Black woman’s sexual assault, which has proven to be a widely liked resource by students in the past.
He is also diving into films such as “The Harder They Come, The Harder They Fall” and “The Bicycle Thieves” throughout the semester, fostering conversations about the films’ themes and how they connect to class and racial disparities in Jamaica, as well as the Italian neorealism movement.
Beyond these subjects, Stephens is also someone who has always gravitated toward popular culture, particularly interested in Black aesthetics and visual culture. He enjoys exposing his students to different forms of Black art, being that it is oftentimes overlooked.
“I like to engage students with Black cultural objects and Black films, Black art, Black music that tends to engage with those themes,” Stephens said. “Also share with them Black cultural objects that are often overlooked even by other Black culture producers.”
Between all his classes, Stephens aims to discourage reform, wanting his students to think about a world in which certain societal and racial expectations, norms and structures were not in place. Knowing that his students are in a learning environment where new ideas can be heard and developed, he believes that they are open to experience and enthusiastic about making big changes in the future.
“I definitely believe in collective liberation and collective action,” Stephens said. “That has to be multiracial in character for us to get free.”
He also knows there’s still progress to be made outside of the classroom, especially when it comes to creating cross-racial solidarity. Even though Stephens is an advocate for learning and unlearning in the classroom, he also says a university setting is not the only place students should be doing this kind of work.
“I think too often in order to undermine solidarity, cross-racial solidarity amongst other people of color,” Stephens said. “We're told that racism is something that only impacts Black people or impacts Black disproportionately, when I think that other people of color–Asian Americans, Indigenous folks, Latinx folks, also experience exclusion and violence.”
As he continues teaching in Athens, Stephens hopes to continue serving as a role model for students of color, yearning for them to follow their aspirations, and not experience the alienation he felt while in college.
“I think it means a lot to me for when I am able to model for my students of color, and to let them know that I'm a resource, that I’m somebody that cares about them,” Stephens said. “Research and scholarship, those things are really important to me, but I think what is most gratifying is my relationships with marginalized students and letting them know that I’m here for them.”
In the future, Stephens is eager to keep working with students, as well as teach a class next semester centered around Black camp. The playful queer cultural practice focuses on identity exaggeration through taking discarded objects and giving them alternative meanings as a form of questioning society’s investment in identity.
“I've just always been interested in popular culture, the arts,” Stephens said. “I've always been really curious even at a young age. I’ve always been interested in the past, so it's fun to me to take my knowledge of European cultural traditions and to demystify those traditions, question the canon, but also stress the importance of students of all racial and identity backgrounds.”
With so much enthusiasm for teaching, Stephens has already proven to be a great fit, uplifting students around him while making the classroom an open and fun setting for learning.
