Dent is currently[when?] an associate professor of feminist studies, history of consciousness, and legal studies in the humanities division at the University of California, Santa Cruz.[5][4] In 2019, she received a Dizikes Award for teaching.[6]
Her research interests include Africana studies, legal theory, and popular culture.[4] She is the editor of Black Popular Culture (1992).[5] This collection was named a Village Voice Best Book of the Year.[7] In 2011, Dent served in a delegation to Palestine, and she advocates for human rights in the region.[8][9] She is sought-after internationally as a speaker and educator on Black Feminism and abolitionism.[10][11][12][13]
She has two forthcoming[when?] books, Prison as a Border and Other Essays and Anchored to the Real: Black Literature in the Wake of Anthropology, which will be published by Duke University Press.[14][15][16] Dent co authored the 2022 book Abolition. Feminism. Now. with Angela Davis, Erica Meiners, and Beth Richie, which argues for a prison abolitionist vision of feminism.[17][18][19][20]
Personal life
As of 2020[update], Dent was living with her partner, feminist scholar and activist Angela Y. Davis.[21][22] Together, they have advocated for the abolition of police and prisons, using the concept of abolition feminism.[23]
Editor, Black Popular Culture. Seattle: Bay Press, 1992; New York: New Press, 1999. ISBN9780941920247[24]
"Michael Joo," in Elaine Kim and Margo Machida, eds., Fresh Talk/Daring Gazes: Asian American Issues in the Contemporary Visual Arts. Berkeley: University of California Press. 2003
Co-author with mentor Angela Y. Davis,[2] "Prison as a Border: A Conversation on Gender, Globalization and Punishment", Signs: Journal of Women and Culture, Vol. 26 No. 4; Summer, 2001.
"A New York Story", catalogue essay for the exhibition Inclusion/Exclusion. Graz, Austria. 1997.
Jack Salzman, David Lionel Smith, and Cornel West, (eds) "Rita Dove" and "Jamaica Kincaid" (literary biographies) in Encyclopedia of African American Culture and History, New York: Macmillan Library Reference. 1996.
"Missionary Position" in Rebecca Walker, ed., To Be Real: Telling the Truth and Changing the Face of Feminism. New York: Anchor/Doubleday. 1995.
"Race and Racism: A Symposium", Social Text. Vol. 42. Spring, 1995