The Black Guy Dies First: Black Horror Cinema from Fodder to Oscar

Dr. Robin R. Means Coleman is Northwestern's vice president and associate provost for diversity and inclusion. An internationally prominent and award-winning scholar, Dr. Coleman's work focuses on media studies and the cultural politics of Blackness. Dr. Coleman is the author of Horror Noire: Blacks in American Horror Films from the 1890s to Present and African American Viewers and the Black Situation Comedy: Situating Racial Humor. She is coauthor of Intercultural Communication for Everyday Life. She is the editor of Say It Loud: African American Audiences, Media, and Identity and coeditor of Fight the Power: The Spike Lee Reader. She is also the author of a number of other academic and popular publications. Dr. Coleman is featured in, and executive produced, the critically acclaimed documentary film Horror Noire which is based on her book Horror Noire: Blacks in American Horror Films from the 1890s to Present.

Mark H. Harris is an entertainment journalist who has written about cinema and pop culture for over twenty years for New York magazine, Vulture, Rotten Tomatoes, About.com, PopMatters, Salem Horror Fest, Napster, MadAtoms, Pretty Scary, Ugly Planet, and THEiNDI. A lifelong horror fan, he created the website BlackHorrorMovies.com in 2005 as the premier online source chronicling the history of Black representation and achievement in horror cinema. He was a featured commentator in the acclaimed documentary Horror Noire and the Shudder series Behind the Monsters.