About

Therí A. Pickens, PhD

Therí A. Pickens, PhD is an award-winning scholar and poet. She specializes in Arab American Studies, Black Studies, Comparative Literature, and Disability Studies. She has written two academic books: New Body Politics (Routledge 2014) and Black Madness :: Mad Blackness (Duke 2019). She has also edited three projects: a special issue of African American Review (2017), Arab American Aesthetics (Routledge 2018), and a special issue of College Language Association Journal (2021). Her debut poetry collection, What Had Happened Was, was published in 2025. Her other poetry has been published in Diode, The Journal, Omnium Gatherum Quarterly, and Black Renaissance/Renaissance Noire. She is a two-time Pushcart Prize Nominee.