Javon Johnson — SPARQNOW

At-a-Glance

Director of African American and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Author of "Killing Poetry: Blackness and the Making of Slam and Spoken Word Communities" (2017).
Co-editor of the poetry collection "End of Chiraq: A Literary Mixtape" (2018).
Award-winning performance poet, appearing on HBO's Def Poetry Jam and winning National Poetry Slam championships in 2003, 2004, and 2017.
Holds a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from Northwestern University.

Biography

Javon Johnson is an American spoken word poet, writer, and professor. He currently serves as the Director of African American and African Diaspora Studies in the Department of Interdisciplinary, Gender, and Ethnic Studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He is the author of "Killing Poetry: Blackness and the Making of Slam and Spoken Word Communities," published in 2017.