Joan Morgan (American author)

Morgan was born in Westmoreland Parish, Jamaica, where her father was one of the founders of the Jamaica Labour Party and later was president of the Jamaican Freedom League in the Bronx. In 1968, she moved to the South Bronx neighborhood of the Bronx when she was two years old.{{cite news|last1=Naison|first1=Mark|last2=LaBennett|first2=Oneka|last3=Morgan|first3=Joan|title=Bronx African American History Project: Joan Morgan|url=https://research.library.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1285&context=baahp_oralhist|work=Fordham University|date=4 November 2015}} Her father worked at Montefiore Medical Center in security and her mother, Maud Morgan, worked at Montefiore as a nurse, also teaching at the community center, Clermont Center.

Morgan went to the elementary school, PS 2, on Fulton Avenue, then to junior high on 148th on Washington Avenue. During that time she went to the Clermont Center in the Clermont projects. In 1979, Morgan went to the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in the Bronx, where she had previously attended a summer school enrichment program. She graduated from Fieldston in 1983.

In 1987, Morgan received a B.A. from Wesleyan University.{{cite news|last1=Rubenstein|first1=Lauren|title=Wesleyan in the News|url=https://newsletter.blogs.wesleyan.edu/2018/08/20/wesleyan-in-the-news-15/|work=News @ Wesleyan|publisher=Wesleyan University|date=20 August 2018}} During this time she went to Howard University for a semester. She was a Scholar in Residence at Vanderbilt University.{{cite news|title=Red Room Writer Profile: Joan Morgan|url=http://www.redroom.com/author/joan-morgan/bio|work=Red Room|date=2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090221030120/http://www.redroom.com/author/joan-morgan/bio|archive-date=21 February 2009|access-date=19 July 2020|url-status=live}} In 2020, Morgan received a PhD in American Studies from New York University. Her dissertation, It's About Time We Got Off: Claiming a Pleasure Politic in Black Feminist Thought, was published thereafter. Her advisor was Jennifer L. Morgan.{{cite thesis|last=Morgan|first=Joan|date=2020|title=It's About Time We Got Off: Claiming a Pleasure Politic in Black Feminist Thought|type=PhD|publisher=New York University}}

Morgan has been a freelance journalist since 1988. She has worked at SPIN as a columnist and as an editor. Morgan has written articles for Working Mother, More, Ms., Interview, and GIANT magazines.

Morgan began her journalism career at The Village Voice,{{cite news|title=Joan Morgan|url=https://diversityarts.stanford.edu/people/joan-morgan|work=Institute for Diversity in the Arts|publisher=Stanford University|date=Winter 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180611093432/https://diversityarts.stanford.edu/people/joan-morgan|archive-date=11 June 2018}} where one of her early articles, The Pro-Rape Culture, was about the Central Park jogger case.{{cite news|last1=Morgan|first1=Joan|title=The Pro-Rape Culture|work=The Village Voice|date=9 May 1989|pages=39–40}} In 1991, Morgan covered the Mike Tyson rape trial for The Village Voice. Morgan received an Excellence Merit Award from the National Women's Political Caucus.{{cite news|title=Hip-Hop Feminist Journalist Joan Morgan Discusses the Changing Dynamics of Race and Ethnicity in America|url=https://apps.carleton.edu/media_relations/press_releases/?story_id=1102986|work=Carleton College|date=14 February 2014}}

From 1993 to 1996, Morgan was an original staff writer for Vibe Media Group's Vibe magazine.

In 1999, Morgan coined the phrases "Black girl magic" and "hip hop feminist" through her groundbreaking book When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost.{{cite news|title=Nonfiction Book Review: When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost: A Hip-Hop Feminist Breaks It Down|url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-684-82262-4|work=Publishers Weekly|date=1 March 1999}}

From 2000 to 2002, Morgan was the executive editor of Essence magazine.{{cite news|last1=Upano|first1=Alica|title=Women of Color Seminar set to roll Saturday|url=https://dailycollegian.com/2001/11/women-of-color-seminar-set-to-roll-saturday/|work=Massachusetts Daily Collegian|date=30 November 2001}}

From 2008 to 2010, Morgan was the editorial director of SET Magazine.

In 2012, Morgan participated in a 12-city panel tour series called "Does Hip-Hop Hate Women," which was held at college campuses across the country at Brown University, Dillard University, Harvard Law School, Spelman College, and the University of Chicago among others. Panelists included local hosts and a rotating group that included Bakari Kitwana, Mark Anthony Neal, Treva Lindsey, Marc Lamont Hill, Akiba Solomon, Byron Hurt, and Tracey Sharpley Whiting among others.{{cite news|title=Dillard to host 'Does hip hop hate women?' conversation|url=http://www.louisianaweekly.com/dillard-to-host-%E2%80%98does-hip-hop-hate-women%E2%80%99-conversation/|work=Louisiana Weekly|date=17 September 2012}}

In the Winter of 2013, she taught a class at Stanford University titled "The Pleasure Principle: A Post-Hip Hop Search for a Black Feminist Politics of Pleasure".{{cite web|title=The Pleasure Principle: A Post-Hip Hop Search for a Black Feminist Politics of Pleasure|url=http://pleasurepoliticsstanford.tumblr.com|website=The Politics of Pleasure (course Tumblr), Stanford University|date=Winter 2013}} Morgan was also an instructor at Ethical Culture Fieldston School, The New School, Duke University, and Vanderbilt University.

Morgan appeared in the 2020 documentary On the Record about rape accusations against hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons.{{cite news|last1=Scott|first1=Sydney|title='On The Record' Gets To The Root Of Why Black Sexual Assault Survivors Are Silenced|url=https://www.essence.com/entertainment/only-essence/on-the-record-review/|work=Essence|date=5 February 2020}}

Morgan's most famous work is found in her 1999 book When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost, in which she examines the complexities of feminism for women who have grown up with hip hop. She examines the perceived hypocrisies in being a feminist woman who supports black male-centric movements like Farrakhan's Million Man March and hip-hop - which she argues has many male-centric elements. She explores the dynamic of ascribing to feminism while simultaneously enjoying some aspects of patriarchal culture, focusing on how one balances and reconciles these seemingly conflicting ideas.

She asks herself questions like "Can you be a good feminist and admit out loud that there are things that you kinda dig about patriarchy?" and "Suppose you don't want to pay for your own dinner, hold the door open, fix things, move furniture, or get intimate with whatever's under the hood of a car"? She additionally cites music artists such as R. Kelly, Jodeci, Lil' Kim, and Queen Latifah as vehicles through which she makes her point about some of the dualities that come with feminism.{{cite book|last1=Morgan|first1=Joan|title=When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost: My Life As a Hip-Hop Feminist|date=1999|publisher=Simon & Schuster|location=New York, NY|isbn=978-0-684-82262-4|oclc=246337979}}{{rp|49–62}}

In 2018, Morgan published the book, She Begat This: 20 Years of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, what The Paris Review called a cultural history of Lauryn Hill's 1998 The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, 20 years after the record's release.{{cite news|last1=Jackson|first1=Danielle A.|title=Joan Morgan, Hip-Hop Feminism, and 'The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill'|url=https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/08/08/joan-morgan-hip-hop-feminism-and-the-twenty-year-legacy-of-the-miseducation-of-lauryn-hill/|work=The Paris Review|date=8 August 2018|language=en}}

Morgan has a son.

• National Woman's Political Caucus, Excellence Merit Media Award (EMMA) for Mike Tyson trial coverage
• 2013: Stanford University, Dr. St. Clair Drake Award for Outstanding Teaching for the course "The Pleasure Principle"{{cite news|title=Book Launch: Joan Morgan|url=https://nyuiaaa.org/event-items/book-launch-joan-morgan/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190412004600/https://nyuiaaa.org/event-items/book-launch-joan-morgan/|url-status=dead|archive-date=April 12, 2019|work=NYU Institute of African American Affairs|date=31 August 2018}}

• {{cite book|last1=Morgan|first1=Joan|title=When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost: My Life As a Hip-Hop Feminist|date=1999|publisher=Simon & Schuster|location=New York, NY|isbn=978-0-684-82262-4|oclc=246337979}}
• {{cite book|last1=Morgan|first1=Joan|last2=Cooper|first2=Brittney (foreword by)|last3=Lindsey|first3=Treva B. (afterword by)|title=When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost: A Hip-Hop Feminist Breaks It Down|date=2017|publisher=Simon & Schuster|location=New York, NY|isbn=978-0-684-86861-5|edition=New|oclc=1018087707}}
• {{cite book|last1=Morgan|first1=Joan|title=She Begat This: 20 Years of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill|date=2018|publisher=37 Ink/Atria, Simon & Schuster|location=New York, NY|isbn=978-1-501-19525-9|oclc=1041212001}}
• {{cite thesis|last=Morgan|first=Joan|date=2020|title=It's About Time We Got Off: Claiming a Pleasure Politic in Black Feminist Thought|type=PhD|publisher=New York University}}

• {{cite news|last1=Morgan|first1=Joan|title=The Pro-Rape Culture|work=The Village Voice|date=9 May 1989|pages=39–40}}
• {{cite news|last1=Kennedy|first1=Lisa|last2=West|first2=Cornel|last3=Morgan|first3=Joan|last4=Wood|first4=Joe|last5=Lester|first5=Julius|last6=Tate|first6=Greg|last7=Wallace|first7=Michele|last8=hooks|first8=bell|last9=Stewart|first9=Frank (photographs by)|title=Black Like Who? Notes on African American Identity|url=https://www.villagevoice.com/2020/06/19/black-like-who-ghosts/|work=The Village Voice|date=17 September 1991|pages=32–33, 36, 38}}
• {{cite news|last1=Morgan|first1=Joan|title=A Blackwoman's Guide to the Tyson Trial|work=The Village Voice|date=3 March 1992|pages=37–}}
• {{cite news|last1=Morgan|first1=Joan|title=Fly-Girls, Bitches, Hos: Notes From a Hip-Hop Feminist|work=The Village Voice|date=13 February 1996|pages=32–33}}
• {{cite news|last1=Morgan|first1=Joan|title=Baby's Mama|work=Essence|date=August 1997|pages=84–86}}
• {{cite news|last1=Morgan|first1=Joan|title=Give It Up!|url=https://www.villagevoice.com/1998/12/01/give-it-up/|work=The Village Voice|date=1 December 1998}}
• {{cite journal|last1=Morgan|first1=Joan|title=Why We Get Off: Moving Towards a Black Feminist Politics of Pleasure|journal=The Black Scholar|date=Winter 2015|volume=45|issue=4 - On the Future of Black Feminism|pages=36–46|publisher=Taylor & Francis, Ltd.|doi=10.1080/00064246.2015.1080915|jstor=24803042|s2cid=143330163}}

{{Reflist}}

• {{cite journal|last1=Carpenter|first1=Faedra Chatard|last2=Morgan|first2=Joan|title=An Interview with Joan Morgan|journal=Callaloo|date=2006|volume=29|issue=3|pages=764–772|doi=10.1353/CAL.2006.0133|s2cid=162259678}}

• [https://as.nyu.edu/faculty/JoanMorgan.html Joan Morgan] at New York University
• [https://www.villagevoice.com/author/joanmorgan/ Joan Morgan] at The Village Voice
• {{IMDb name|nm2332989|Joan Morgan}}

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Category:American feminist writers

Category:Living people

Category:20th-century American women writers

Category:1965 births

Category:Writers from the Bronx

Category:African-American feminists

Category:People from Westmoreland Parish

Category:20th-century American women journalists

Category:Ethical Culture Fieldston School alumni

Category:Wesleyan College alumni

Category:New York University alumni

Category:The Village Voice people

Category:Magazine publishers (people)

Category:20th-century American journalists

Category:21st-century American women writers

Category:21st-century American journalists

Category:21st-century American women journalists

Category:Jamaican emigrants to the United States

Category:Journalists from New York City