David J. Leonard

Born and raised in California, David returns home after 22 years at Washington State University. He is a teacher, writer, and someone who finds power and purpose in the classroom. Having taught courses on the civil rights movement, mass incarceration, hip-hop, race and popular culture, food culture, social justice, sports, and so much more, he’s excited to bring these types of courses to Chico State.

His research focuses on the ways that mediated culture, representations, and dominant narratives teach race within the popular imagination. His work examines the ways in which media culture becomes a space of contestation, rearticulation, reification, and even resistance. His next book the University Washington Press is entitled All Lives Don’t Matter: White Angels, Black Th*gs and America’s Racism Problem. He is the author of After Artest: The NBA and the Assault on Blackness (SUNY Press, 2012). He is also author of Screens Fade to Black: Contemporary African American Cinema (Praeger, 2006); he is co-editor of Visual Economies of/in Motion: Sport and Film (Peter Lang, 2006), and Commodified and Criminalized: New Racism and African Americans in Contemporary Sports (Rowman and Littlefield, 2011). His work has appeared in Journal of Sport and Social Issues, Cultural Studies: Critical Methodologies, Game and Culture, as well as several anthologies. Leonard is a past contributor to The Undefeated, NewBlackMan, the Feminist Wire, Huffington Post, Chronicle of Higher Education, and Urban Cusp. His work has appeared in The Washington Post, BBC, The Root, Ebony, Slam, Racialicious, Loop21, The Nation, Layupline, The Grio, and The Starting Five. Mark Anthony Neal, professor of African American Studies at Duke University, describes Leonard as “one of the sharpest minds writing about race and sports in America today. Race is serious business, and no one understands better than Leonard how that extends to the arenas and stadiums that have long been the site of confrontation between black bodies and spectators.”

When not teaching or writing, David likes to spend time with his kids, dogs, and family. He enjoys cooking, playing video games, watching the Lakers and Dodgers, and simply chilling. He’s excited to connect and build with the Chico State community.