Profile

Cera Smith (they/she) is an Assistant Professor of Indigenous, Race, and Ethnic Studies. Their research focuses on twentieth and twenty-first century U.S. Black literature, Black Studies, and the health humanities. Cera’s current book project, Vivified Viscerality: Bioscience and the Black Interior in U.S. Black Literature and Sculpture, demonstrates how and why U.S. Black artists use biology to depict racialized life. Prior to coming to the University of Oregon, Cera taught courses like “Black Life and the Human / Body,” “Who Is an African American?,” “U.S. Afro-Latinx Literatures,” and “Writing Trauma.” They also worked for social justice oriented educational organizations, including the California Conference for Equality and Justice and the Yale Prison Education Initiative.