Sara E. Johnson is a Professor of Literature at the University of California, San Diego. She received her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Stanford University and her B.A. from Yale University in Comparative Literature and African American Studies.

Her research and teaching areas include literature, theory and history of the Hispanophone, Francophone and Anglophone Caribbean and its diasporas; hemispheric American literature and cultural studies; the Age of Revolution in the extended Americas; and music and dance of the African Diaspora.

She has spent time living abroad in Senegal, Cuba, and Martinique, as well as conducting research in archives throughout the Caribbean and Europe. Past fellowships include those from the Ford Foundation, the University of California President’s Postdoctoral Program, the Library Company of Philadelphia, the Hellman Fund, the UC Consortium for Black Studies, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Bibliographical Society of America.

She served on the Council of the Omohundro Institute for Early American History and Culture from 2018-2023. While a member of Council she was on the editorial board of the William and Mary Quarterly, serving as chair from 2022-2023 .

Johnson also served as co-director of the UCSD Black Studies Project from 2021-2025. She is affiliated with the Black Diaspora and African American Studies Program, the Center for Iberian & Latin American Studies, and the Department of Ethnic Studies.

She proudly hails from Baltimore City.