Dr John Wilkins identifies as U.S.-Black and Gay. He was born in North Carolina, and grew up in Connecticut. He served in the U.S. Navy as a Cryptologist (Russian Language) from 1983-1987. Dr. Wilkins earned his B.A. from Franklin & Marshall College, in Lancaster Pennsylvania; and he earned his MA in English Literature from the L’Université de Montréal, Canada. His thesis dealt with “Goddess Imagery in the Novels of Toni Morrison”. Dr. Wilkins has recently earned his doctorate from Trinity College Dublin’s School of English where he interrogated representations of “Black Gay Male Identity in the African Diaspora”. Dr. Wilkins has taught on undergraduate and graduate course modules inckuding; The American Genre, Modernism, Post-Colonialism, and Romanticism in Trinity College’s School of English; Sociology Department on “Black African Voices in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade”; UCD’s School of Social Justice on “Black Male Identity”; UCD’s Sociology Department on “Black Activism and Movements in the Black Atlantic”; Dr. Wilkins was a Moderator on Trinity College Dublin’s “Black Identity in the Americas” Conference; presented at “Sibéil’s Feminist and Gender Network Studies Conference on “Black Gay Male Identity in the African Diaspora”; and also the African Scholars Association Ireland (AFSAI) Conference on “The Black Body and White Memory”. His research interests are the intersections of gender, race, and National identity.