Fred Moten

Fred Moten (born 1962) is an American cultural

theorist, poet, and scholar whose work explores critical Fred Moten
theory, black studies, and performance studies. Moten
is Professor of Performance Studies at New York
University and Distinguished Professor Emeritus at
University of California, Riverside; he previously
taught at Duke University, and the University of Iowa.
His scholarly texts include The Undercommons:
Fugitive Planning & Black Study which was co-
authored with Stefano Harney, In the Break: The
Aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition, and The
Universal Machine (Duke University Press, 2018).[1]
He has published numerous poetry collections, Moten in 2016
including The Little Edges, The Feel Trio, B Jenkins, Born August 18, 1962
and Hughson's Tavern.[2] In 2020, Moten was awarded Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S.
a MacArthur Fellowship for "[c]reating new
Education Harvard University (BA)
conceptual spaces to accommodate emerging forms of
University of California,
Black aesthetics, cultural production, and social
Berkeley (MA, PhD)
life."[3]
Occupation(s) Professor, poet, scholar,
cultural theorist

Biography Employer New York University

Known for Poetry and essays on African-
Fred Moten was born in Las Vegas in 1962 and was American culture, Black
raised Catholic in the segregated black neighborhood thought
on the western end of the city. His parents were among
Notable work The Undercommons: Fugitive
the black families that made up the Great Migration,
Planning & Black Study, 2013,
the period in US history when many black families (coauthored with Stefano
moved from the Deep South to seek new prospects in Harney); In the Break: The
the northern and western parts of the country. His Aesthetics of the Black Radical
parents were originally from Louisiana and Arkansas, Tradition, 2003; The Little
and after resettling in Las Vegas, his father found Edges, 2014; The Feel Trio,
employment at the Las Vegas Convention Center (and 2014; B Jenkins, 2010;
later worked for Pan American Airlines), and his Hughson’s Tavern, 2008,
mother worked as a grade school teacher.[4][5] Stolen Life, 2018, Black and
Blur, 2018, The Universal
Moten enrolled in Harvard University in 1980 hoping
Machine, 2018)
to pursue a degree in economics. His interest in
sociopolitical discourse, the work of Noam Chomsky,
civic outreach, and political activism led him away from his studies. At the end of his first year, Moten
was required to take a year leave. During this time, he worked as a janitor at the Nevada Test Site, wrote
poetry, and discovered the works of T. S. Eliot and Joseph Conrad, among many others.[6] His return to
Harvard was more successful and led to developing his understanding of prose and finding more
inspiration for his own work. It was also during this time that he met his collaborator-to-be Stefano
Harney. After graduating, Moten went on to pursue his PhD at University of California, Berkeley.[4]

Critical work
Moten makes considerable intellectual contributions to the discourses of black studies, poetry and
poetics, critical race theory and contemporary American literature. He has been profiled by Harvard
Magazine, The New Yorker, The Brooklyn Rail, and LitHub.com about his life and work in scholarship. In
2016, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship[7] and the Stephen E. Henderson Award for Outstanding
Achievement in Poetry by the African American Literature and Culture Society. Moten's work The Feel
Trio (2014), named after Cecil Taylor's trio with William Parker and Tony Oxley,[8] was awarded the Los
Angeles Times Book Prize, and was a poetry finalist for the National Book Award.[2] He also received a
Foundation for Contemporary Arts Roy Lichtenstein Award (2018).[9]

He has served on numerous editorial boards including American Quarterly, Callaloo, Social Text, and
Discourse. He has served on advisory boards for Issues in Critical Investigation at Vanderbilt University,
the Critical Theory Institute at the University of California, Irvine, and was on the board of directors of
the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies at City University of New York.[10] As of September 2018, Moten
is professor in the Department of Performance Studies at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts,
where he teaches courses in Black studies, poetics, music and critical race theory.[11]

One of his most well-known works is a series of essays he published with Stefano Harney in a book
called The Undercommons. Throughout these works he criticizes academia's drive to professionalize the
student, logistical capitalism, debt–credit hierarchies, and state-based institutions. He offers a theory of
hapticality and to stay in debt to one another as a means of understanding one's own relationship to the
world and to others.

The essay, "Catalogue Number 308 (The Black Apparatus Is a Little Girl)", in Black and Blur discusses
photograph number 308 in Thomas Eakins' photographic collection at the Pennsylvania Academy of the
Fine Arts.[12] The photograph depicts a nude African American girl, posed as Venus. Saidiya Hartman
discusses the photograph as well, in her book Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories
of Social Upheaval.

In May 2024, Moten gave a keynote lecture at an academic conference: "Jews and Black Theory:
Conceptualizing Otherness in the Twenty-First Century," held at Harvard University.[13]

Statements
"Black studies is a dehiscence at the heart of the institution on its edge; its broken, coded documents
sanction walking in another world while passing through this one, graphically disordering the
administered scarcity from which black studies flows as wealth."[14]

Reflecting on his old neighborhood, Moten recalled: "I grew up around people who were weird. No one's
blackness was compromised by their weirdness, and by the same token... nobody's weirdness was
compromised by their blackness... In my mind I have this image of Sonny Boy Williamson wearing one
of those harlequin suits he liked to wear. These dudes were strange, and I always felt that's just essential
to black culture. George Clinton is weird. Anybody that we care about, that we still pay attention to, they
were weird."[4]

Works

Academic
With Stefano Harney: All Incomplete (London: Minor Compositions, 2021) ISBN
1570273782
The Universal Machine (series: Consent not to be a single being; Duke University Press,
2018)
Stolen Life (series: Consent not to be a single being; Duke University Press, 2018)
Black and Blur (series: Consent not to be a single being; Duke University Press, 2017)
With Stefano Harney: A Poetics of the Undercommons (Sputnik and Fizzle, 2016)
Who touched me? (with Wu Tsang; If I Can't Dance, I Don't Want to be Part of Your
Revolution, 2016)
With Stefano Harney: The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning and Black Study (London:
Minor Compositions/Autonomedia, 2013)
In the Break: The Aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition (University of Minnesota Press,
2003)

Creative
All That Beauty (Seattle: Letter Machine Editions, 2019) ISBN 1732772118
The Service Porch (Letter Machine Editions, 2016)
The Little Edges (Wesleyan University Press, 2015)
The Feel Trio (Letter Machine Editions, 2014)
B. Jenkins (Duke University Press, 2010)
Hughson's Tavern (Leon Works, 2009)
I ran from it but was still in it (Cusp Books, 2007)[15]

Poems (with Behrle, Jim; Pressed Wafer, 2002)[15]

Arkansas (Pressed Wafer, 2000)

References
1. Moten, Fred (2018). The Universal Machine. Duke University Press. p. 305.
ISBN 9780822370550.
2. Moten, Fred (7 November 2014). "Fred Moten" (https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/fred-m
oten). Fred Moten. Retrieved 21 January 2018.
3. "MacArthur Fellows Program: Fred Moten: Cultural Theorist and Poet / Class of 2020" (http
s://www.macfound.org/fellows/class-of-2020/fred-moten). MacArthur Foundation. Retrieved
October 11, 2020.
4. "The Low End Theory" (https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2018/01/fred-moten-black-and-bl
ur). harvardmagazine.com. 8 December 2017. Retrieved 21 January 2018.
 5. Gómez Alvarado, Yollotl; Pablo Anaya, Juan; Concheiro, Luciano; Rivera Garza, Cristina;
Hernández, Aline (2018-09-05). "Conversación Los Abajocomunes" (https://thenewinquiry.co
m/conversacion-los-abajocomunes/). The New Inquiry. Retrieved 2021-03-31.
6. Stasio, Nicole Campbell, Frank. "Duke Professor Carries On Tradition Of Black Radical
Poetry" (http://wunc.org/post/duke-professor-carries-tradition-black-radical-poetry#stream/
0). wunc.org. Retrieved 21 January 2018.
7. "Fred Moten: Fellow: Awarded 2016" (https://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/fred-moten).
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Retrieved October 13, 2020.
8. "The Feel Trio: Finalist, National Book Awards 2014 for Poetry" (https://www.nationalbook.or
g/books/the-feel-trio). National Book Foundation. Retrieved October 13, 2020.
9. Barone, Joshua (January 1, 2018). "Art-World Giants Give $40,000 Grants to Three Poets"
(https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/01/arts/art-world-giants-give-40000-grants-to-three-poet
s.html). NY Times. Retrieved October 13, 2020.
10. "Fred Moten – UCR – Department of English" (http://english.ucr.edu/people/faculty/fred-mot
en/). english.ucr.edu. Retrieved 21 January 2018.
11. Moten, Fred. "Professor" (https://tisch.nyu.edu/about/directory/performance-studies/fred-mot
en). Tisch Directory. Retrieved March 20, 2019.
12. Moten, Fred. Black and Blur: consent not to be a single being. Durham, North Carolina:
Duke University Press, 2017, p. 70 - 77
13. "Jews and Black Theory: Conceptualizing Otherness in the Twenty-First Century" (https://cj
s.fas.harvard.edu/calendar_event/jews-and-black-theory-conceptualizing-otherness-in-the-t
wenty-first-century/). Center for Jewish Studies. Retrieved 2024-05-22.
14. Wallace, David (30 April 2018). "Fred Moten's Radical Critique of the Present" (https://www.
newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/fred-motens-radical-critique-of-the-present). The
New Yorker. Retrieved 2020-02-11.
15. Poets, Academy of American. "About Fred Moten | Academy of American Poets" (https://poe
ts.org/poet/fred-moten). poets.org. Retrieved 2020-02-11.

External links
Every and All: Fred Moten's Oneness as a Poet, Theorist, and Artistic Muse (https://www.art
news.com/art-news/artists/icons-fred-moten-9976/) by Andy Battaglia for ARTnews
An Interview with Fred Moten, Part 1 (https://lithub.com/an-interview-with-fred-moten-pt-i) by
Adam Fitzgerald for LitHub
An Interview with Fred Moten, Part 2 (https://lithub.com/an-interview-with-fred-moten-pt-ii)
by Adam Fitzgerald for LitHub
Fred Moten with Jarrett Earnest (https://brooklynrail.org/2017/11/art/FRED-MOTEN-with-Jar
rett-Earnest) - The Brooklyn Rail
Ensemble: An Interview with Dr. Fred Moten (http://micemagazine.ca/issue-four/ensemble-in
terview-dr-fred-moten) by Nehal El-Hadi for Mice Magazine
Interview with Poet Fred Moten (https://southjournal.org/fred-moten) by Sharon P. Holland
for South Journal
Fred Moten's interview in New Yorker (https://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interes
t/fred-motens-radical-critique-of-the-present) by David Wallace

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