Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature and African American Literature · Salve Regina University

Reading the threshold between memory, waters, and the world to come.

Dr. Johnson's scholarship centers on African American literature, Kemetic philosophy, Afrofuturism, Buddhist philosophy, and paraontology, tracing how Black literary tradition crosses and re-crosses the door of no return.

Ph.D., Comparative Literature — Louisiana State University, 2022 Executive Editor, Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics
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Ikea M. Johnson
About

Working at the confluence.

Ikea M. Johnson is an Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature and African American Literature at Salve Regina University in Newport, Rhode Island. She hails from Mobile, Alabama, originally, by way of Africatown, and New York, NY, and her work often returns to water as a site of memory, rupture, and passage, from the Middle Passage to the rivers and oceans that recur throughout the Black literary imagination.

Her scholarship reads African American literature through the lens of Kemetic philosophy, Buddhist thought, and Afrofuturism, developing a paraontological approach to Black being, spirituality, and formlessness —most fully realized in a forthcoming monograph on Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man.

She holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Louisiana State University (2022), where she was a Huel D. Perkins Doctoral Research Fellow, and an M.A. and B.A. in English from Auburn University at Montgomery.

Field

African American Literature

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Afrofuturism

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Kemetic Philosophy

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Buddhist Philosophy

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Paraontology

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Oceanic & Diasporic Memory

Selected Publications

Books, chapters, and essays.

Books

Cover of Black Spirituality and Kemetic Philosophy in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man
2027 Black Spirituality and Kemetic Philosophy in Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man": The Underground of History. American Literature Readings in the 21st Century series, ed. Linda Wagner-Martin. Palgrave Macmillan. Due 6 February 2027. ISBN 978-3-032-40049-9. View on Springer →

Articles & Chapters

2026"The Dialectics of Nonviolence: Buddhist Empathy and African American Liberation Thought." Dialogues of the Heart: Daisaku Ikeda, Transnationalism, and American Literature, ed. Anita H. Patterson. Ikeda Center for Peace, Learning, and Dialogue.
2026"Convergence of Consciousness: 'Binti' and the Synthesis of Hybrid Identities in AI." Beyond the Turing Test: What Science Fiction Can Teach Us About Artificial Intelligence. Routledge.
2025"Oceanic Memory; Afrofuturist Reimagining: Exploring Black Identity as a Passage Through Literature and State." Motif Magazine.
2021"Towards Poetic Justice: (Im)material Antiquity in the Works of Albery Allson Whitman." Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics 44.3: 33–45.
2020"On Compassion and the Sublime Black Body: Octavia E. Butler's Parable of the Sower." Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics 43.2: 92+.
2020"Revisiting Recognition: Buddhist Philosophy in Alice Walker's The Color Purple." Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics 43.1: 101+. Reprinted in Children's Literature Review, Gale/Cengage, 2022.
2020"Women and Buddhist Philosophy: Engaging Zen Master Kim Iryop." Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics 43.1: 193+.
2019"Buddhist Recognition in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man." Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics 42.2: 85+.
2018"Sacred Spaces." Comparative Woman 1, Article 21.
Teaching

Courses at Salve Regina University.

  • ENG-329 Inklings: Lewis, Tolkien Circle Fall 2025 & 2026
  • ENG-228 Green Romanticism Fall 2026
  • ENG-210 Myth and Symbol Fall '23, Spr '24, Spr '26
  • ENG-315 / PEL-299E The Harlem Renaissance Spring 2023 & 2026
  • ENG-247 Intro to Literary Theory & Criticism Spring 2025
  • CWP-245 Book Publishing in the U.S. Fall 2024
  • ENG-217 African American Literature Fall 2022–2025
  • ENG-340 Afrofuturism in Literature and Culture Spring 2024
  • UNV-101 Afrofuturism and Spirituality / Memory Fall 2022 & 2023
Lectures & Talks

Public scholarship.

Featured Scholar "Ancient Waters, Ancient Souls: Reading Langston Hughes' 'The Negro Speaks of Rivers' in the Wake." 31st Annual Langston Hughes Community Poetry Reading, hosted by RISD Office of the President. Providence, RI, February 2026. (Audience: 400+)
Panelist JAC Talk: Afrofuturism with Algernon Miller, "Coming and Going." The Jamestown Arts Center, October 2023.
Panelist 2023 Ikeda Forum — "Dialogues of the Heart: The Role of Literature in Fostering Inner Transformation and Peace." Ikeda Center, Cambridge, MA, September 2023.
Guest Lecturer "What Octavia Butler Can Teach Us About Spirituality, Compassion, and the Future." Salve Regina University, Department of Philosophy, November 2022.
Editorial & Service

Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics.

Since 2020, Dr. Johnson has served as Executive Editor of the Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics, and previously as Guest Editor for its special issue on material/immaterial discourse (2020–2021). She also serves on the Fulbright Scholarships Committee at Salve Regina University and reviews for Contemporary Women's Writing (Oxford University Press).