University, and DePaul University. He is currently
the Avalon Foundation Professor in the humani-
ties and African-American studies at the Univer-
sity of Pennsylvania.
In 1993, Dyson, a former welfare teen father,
published Reflecting Black: African-American Cul-
tural Criticism, a collection of essays in which
he provides dynamic conversations and insights
on a variety of topics, including black masculin-
ity. With the publication of numerous essays and
several books between 1993 and 2000, including
the notable Race Rules: Navigating the Color Line
(1996), Dyson emerged as a popular public black
intellectual. Part rapper, preacher, and academic
theoretician, Dyson brings together the worlds
of black American culture, mainstream popular
culture, and academic writing. His cultural bilin-
gualism combines the poetics of black vernacular
and black music forms such as rap and gospel with
scholarly language. With his mastery of the spoken
and written word, Dyson explores the contempo-
rary critical relevance of the subjects crucial to
him—race, gender, class, sexuality, religion, and
popular culture—with a zeal and fluidity that has
made him one of the most compelling voices in
recent history.
Dyson is a fiery orator with a keen ability to
convey sophisticated insights in accessible, creative
language, a quality evidenced by his prolific writ-
ing in a wide array of academic and mainstream
publications and his many lively interrogations of
political and cultural events on television. Dyson
has appeared on such talk shows as Oprah, Charlie
Rose, and Politically Incorrect. He contributes regu-
larly to such black popular magazines as ESSENCE
and Savoy, the music magazines Rolling Stone and
Vibe, and newspapers including The Chicago Sun
Times, The New York Times, and The Washington
Post. In addition, Dyson is a much sought-after
public speaker at universities and on national
radio programs.
Dyson’s significant intensive work, which he
has referred to as “bio-criticism,” demonstrates
rigorous research and insightful social criticism. In
several of his books, Dyson translates the complex-
ity of several key black male figures. With his pro-
vocative Making Malcolm: The Myth and Meaning
of Malcolm X (1995), Dyson established himself
further as an astute, scholarly cultural critic with
his exploration of the appeal of MALCOLM X to Af-
rican-American men of recent generations. In his
study on the late rapper TU PAC SHAKUR: Holler If
You Hear Me: Searching for Tupac Shakur, Dyson
explores Shakur’s poetic rap genius and the rap-
per’s problematic public “gangsta” persona. His
best-selling I May Not Get There With You: The
True Martin Luther King, Jr. (2000) is a compelling
examination of MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR., that il-
luminates the radicalism of his political and moral
vision, yet offers a complex portrait of King as a
cultural myth and human being. Dyson is cur-
rently at work on a cultural biography about the
singer Marvin Gaye. His work thus far has received
numerous awards, including the selection as a New
York Times Notable Book for Making Malcolm and
the selection of Holler If You Hear Me as one of the
best books of 2001 by Publisher’s Weekly, among
many others.BIBLIOGRAPHY
Dobrin, Sidney. “Race and the Public Intellectual: A
Conversation with Michael Eric Dyson.” In Race,
Rhetoric, and the Postcolonial, edited by Gary A.
Olsen and Lynn Worsham, 81–128. Albany: State
University of New York Press, 1999.
Dyson, Michael Eric. Between God and Gangsta Rap:
Bearing Witness to Black Culture. New York: Ox-
ford University Press, 1996.
———. Holler If You Hear Me: Searching for Tupac
Shakur. New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2001.
———. I May Not Get There with You: The True Mar-
tin Luther King Jr. New York: Free Press, 2000.
———. Making Malcolm: The Myth and Meaning of
Malcolm X. New York: Oxford University Press,
1995.
———. Race Rules: Navigating the Color Line. Read-
ing, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1996.
———. Reflecting Black: African American Cultural
Criticism. Minneapolis: Minnesota University
Press, 1993.
Reid, Calvin. “Michael Eric Dyson: Of Hers and Hip
Hop.” Publishers Weekly, 21 February 2000. For-162 Dyson, Michael Eric