Dr. Brienne Adams

Dr. Brienne A. Adams earned her Ph.D. from the University of Maryland, College Park in American Studies. She holds certificates in Digital Studies in the Arts and Humanities and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She received her MA in African American Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a BA in Literature Studies from Beloit College. Her research utilizes Black feminisms, queer, and affect theories as centering frameworks to study intimate world building and meaning making fans create from Black popular culture productions on social media platforms. Through studying the quotidian act of social media usage, her work intervenes in examining interiority in Black cultural productions and fandom expression as an example of Black digital knowledge production and public intimacy. 

She was a 2019-2020 AADHum (African American History, Culture, and Digital Humanities) Scholar at the University of Maryland, College Park, an invited participant to the Understanding Digital Culture: Humanist Lens for Internet Research institute at the University of Florida, the Future of American Studies institute at Dartmouth College, and Digital IDEAS: A Summer Institute for Anti-Racist Critical Digital Studies from the DISCO (Digital Inquiry, Speculation, Critique, and Optimism) Network at the University of Michigan. She has presented at ASA, SCMS, Fan Studies Network North America Conference, DC Queer Studies Conference, and moderated a panel at NWSA. Dr. Adams published an article titled “Whole Self to the World: Creating Affective Worlds and Black Digital Intimacy in the Fandom of The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl and Insecure” in a special edition of Digital Humanities Quarterly on “Black Digital Humanities in the Rising Generation.”