Mark Lockwood (M.A.' 17) is a graduate in the Department of Performance Studies at NYU whose work combines the intersection of theory and practice in both his academic and performative explorations. He received his BA in Women's & Gender Studies and English from Rutgers University, where he was a recipient of the Ronald E. McNair Post-baccalaureate Achievement Program. While a graduate student at NYU, Mark built his theoretical framework centered around black queer performance and masculinity, in order to consider the ways in which black gay sex workers are represented in the gay porn market. Further, his project focused on the "homo-thug" archetype and argued for a more nuanced approach towards sexualized depictions of black men in hardcore moving-image media. Mark is currently a Ph.D. student in the Department of American Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park, where he is continuing this project. Combining theoretical and textual analysis, Mark's dissertation pays attention to how black gay sex workers understand the political stakes of their representations and instead deploy what he calls "black inches" - a performative strategy that is tethered to black men's racial-sexual history - to invoke agency where it is assumed to not exist. Drawing from black queer studies, race and visual culture, performance studies, and critical porn studies, Mark's project provides new methods for reading black queer agency and sexuality in pornographic texts.