Charise Cheney focuses on African-American popular and political cultures, Black nationalist ideologies and practices, gender and sexuality.
She is the author of "Brothers Gonna Work It Out: Sexual Politics in the Golden Age of Rap Nationalism" (New York: New York University Press, 2005). She is currently working on a book titled “What Do We Have to Lose?” School Desegregation in Topeka, Kansas after Brown v. Board, 1953-1970."
Cheney earned a Bachelor's of Science degree in journalism from Northwestern University in 1993, and a Ph.D., in history from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana in 1999.