About Racquel

Racquel Gates is an Associate Professor of Film at Columbia University. She received her PhD from Northwestern University’s department of Screen Cultures, and holds an MA in Humanities from the University of Chicago as well as a BS in Foreign Service from Georgetown University.

Her research focuses on blackness and popular culture, with special attention to discourses of taste and quality. She is the author of Double Negative: The Black Image and Popular Culture (Duke, 2018), where she argues that some of the most disreputable representations of black people in popular media can strategically pose questions about blackness, black culture, and American society in ways that more respectable ones cannot. Her work appears in both academic as well as popular publications, some of which include The New York Times, The Root, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Film Quarterly, Television & New Media, as well as other journals and collections.

She currently lives in Brooklyn with her partner and twin sons.

Contact Me

Racquel is available for speaking engagements, panel moderation, and book signings/readings. Reach out to her below for booking information and availability.