Photo credit: April Wolf
Emily Lordi is a writer, professor, and author of the first cultural biography of Whitney Houston, Holding Lightning. The New York Times called it a “dynamic” account that “works eloquently to elevate and re-frame an icon.” The LA Times called it a “propulsively readable” work whose “lasting effect is the illumination of Whitney’s legacy.”
The book’s spirit can be gleaned from this excerpt in Ms. Magazine, this episode of Pop Pantheon, and this essay for T magazine.
Lordi’s prior books are Black Resonance (2013), Donny Hathaway Live (33 1/3 series, 2016), and The Meaning of Soul (2020), which was named a Choice Outstanding Academic Title and shortlisted for the Museum of African American History Stone Book Award.
Trained as a literary critic and music historian in the field of Black studies, Lordi aims to reveal the nuances of pop culture and performance, often setting Black artists at the center of American creative life. Her work appears in such venues as the New Yorker online, the Washington Post, and T: The New York Times Style Magazine, where she is a writer at large. She teaches at Vanderbilt, lives in Nashville, and hails from the Northeast.
contact: emily.lordi@vanderbilt.edu
