PUBLICATIONS
BOOKS:
Charles Johnson’s Fiction. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2002
Charles Johnson: The Novelist as Philosopher. Co-editor. Oxford, MS: University of Mississippi Press, 2007.
SELECTED ESSAYS AND INTERVIEWS:
“‘A different kind of experiment’”: Clarence Major’s Dirty Bird Blues and the Music of Visibility.” New Essays on the African American Novel:From Hurston and Ellison to Morrison and Whitehead. Lovalerie King and Linda F. Selzer, eds. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.
“Invisible Man as ‘a form of social power’: The Evolution of Ralph Ellison’s Politics.” Ralph Ellison and the Raft of Hope: A Political Companion to Invisible Man. Lucas Morel, ed. (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2004). 105-118.
“‘I was my father’s father, and he my child:’ The Process of Black Fatherhood and Literary Evolution in Charles Johnson’s Fiction.” Contemporary Black Men’s Fiction and Drama. Keith S. Clark, ed. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001. 108-134.
“‘You think a man can’t kneel and stand?’: Ernest J. Gaines’s Reassessment of Religion as Positive Communal Influence in A Lesson Before Dying.” Callaloo: A Journal of African-American and African Arts and Letters. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. 24.1 (Winter, 2001): 346-362.
SELECTED REFERENCE ARTICLES:
“Black Arts Movement.” The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature. 4 volumes. Jay Parini, editor-in-chief. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. 1:190-195.
“Gwendolyn Brooks.” The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature. 4 volumes. Jay Parini, editor-in-chief. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. 1:211-214.
“Ralph Ellison.” The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature. 4 volumes. Jay Parini, editor-in-chief. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. 1:468-474.
“Harlem Renaissance.” The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature. 4 volumes. Jay Parini, editor-in-chief. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. 2:147-153.
“Native Son.” The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature. 4 volumes. Jay Parini, editor-in-chief. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. 4: 491-494.
SELECTED CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS:
“ ‘At the risk of supporting cherished stereotypes, I run fast, sing, dance, and have been told I am good in bed’: Sam Greenlee’s Black Arts Era Poetics.” Paper presented at The Gathering: A Conference on African American Literature. Chapel Hill, NC. June, 2005
“ ‘I do not consider myself a victim of white racism because a victim submits’: Black Masculinist Poetics in Chicago, circa 1969.” Paper presented at the American Literature Association meetings. Boston, MA. May, 2005.
“ ‘a different kind of experiment’: Clarence Major’s Dirty Bird Blues and the Music of Visibility.” Paper presented at the Pennsylvania State University Conference on the African American Novel. State College, PA. April, 2005.
“’in its own right, a form of social power’: Invisible Man and the Evolution of Ellison’s Politics.” A Symposium Commemorating Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man on the Fiftieth Anniversary of Its Publication. Washington and Lee University, Lexington, VA. February, 2002.
“’What the People Say’: The Chicago Defender and the Rhythms of Chicago’s African American Renaissance.” Midwest Modern Language Association, Cleveland, OH. November, 2001.
“The Black Aesthetic, Chicago Style: Art, Gender and Politics in the Organization of Black American Culture (OBAC).” American Literature Association, Boston, MA. May, 2001.
“‘Out from the lushness of his legacy:’ Heritage, Community, and the Chicago School in Frank London Brown’s Social Fiction.” Modern Language Association, Chicago, IL. December, 1999.
SELECTED ACADEMIC HONORS:
Marjorie Lamberti Faculty Appreciation Award, Middlebury College, 2006
NEH Fellowship for College Teachers and Independent Scholars, 1999-2000. “Chicago’s Legacy: An African American Literary History”
New England Colleges Fund Grant for Collaborative Research, 1999-2000. “The Chicago Defender and African American Literary Culture.”
Presidential Fellowship, Salzburg Seminar, 1997