Emily Lordi is a writer, professor, and cultural critic whose focus is African American literature and black popular music. She is an associate professor of English at Vanderbilt University and the author of three books: Black Resonance: Iconic Women Singers and African American Literature (2013), Donny Hathaway Live (2016), and, forthcoming in 2020, The Meaning of Soul. In addition to publishing scholarly articles on topics ranging from literary modernism to Beyoncé, Lordi is a freelance contributor to such venues as New Yorker.com, Billboard, The Atlantic, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. She was previously an associate professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.