Areas of Specialization
Afircan-American Literature Program
Although the rankings of programs and institutions in the US News and World Report are the result of highly informal surveys sent to academic department administrators, the eight faculty specialists in the African American Literature and Language area of study in the Department of English are proud that their program ranks among the top ten in the nation's public institutions. Among our prize-winning research faculty, critics, and poets are two who have won American Book Awards and have been inducted into the International Literary Hall of Fame for Writers of African Descent, as well as one who has been a Fulbright Scholar in Spain, Portugal, and China. Our faculty have published books in such major presses as the University of Massachusetts, University of Illinois, University of North Carolina, University of Alabama, University of Salamanca, Southern Illinois University, Wayne State University, Syracuse University, Heinemann, and Routledge. Our articles have appeared regularly in such academic and popular journals as Phylon , African American Review , The Massachusetts Review , Michigan Quarterly Review, College English , College Language Association Journal , Black World , The World & I , Mark Twain Journal and American Book Review . Click the following names to access the individual academic biographies of area specialists: Bernard W. Bell, Keith Gilyard, Lovalerie King, Aldon Nielsen, Iyunolu Osagie, Elaine Richardson, Linda Selzer, and Dan Walden.
Course Offerings in African American Literature and Language
Undergraduate students can earn a certificate in African American Literature and Language if they complete fifteen (15) credits in the area of study, including two required cross-listed courses with African and African American Studies: "The African American Oral Folk Tradition" and "Slavery and the Literary Imagination." Recent additional specialized courses include the following:
Undergraduate
- The Blues Detective: Mapping the Development of the African American Detective Novel
- Reading Black, Reading Feminist
- The Double Consciousness and Poetic Realism of Toni Morrison's Novels
- Black Women Writers
- African American Poetry
- African American Novel I (William W. Brown to Richard Wright)
- African American Novel II (Richard Wright to Gayl Jones)
- African American Autobiography
Graduate
- Contemporary Black American Gay, Science Fiction, and Detective Novels
- Neorealism, Modernism, and Postmodernism in the Contemporary African American Novel
- The Contemporary African American Novel and the New Black Aesthetic
- Survey of African American Literary Criticism
- Third World Feminisms
- Modernism and the Harlem Renaissance
- Caribbean Literature: 'Poetics of Relation
- Seminar in African American Rhetoric
- Ebonics: A Sociolinguistic History of African American Vernacular English; or Talkin dat Talk
- Literacies and Discourse Practices of Afro-diasporic Cultures
- African American Playwrights
African American Voices Conference and Lecture Series
This series evolved from the African American Tradition Series (AATS), summer conferences initiated by Professor B. W. Bell, the Department of English, and the Institute for the Arts and Humanities (IAH) in order to stimulate the appreciation and understanding of African American arts and literature. Conferences have included "Language, Literature, and Criticism in Vernacular Theory and Pedagogy" (1994), "African American Traditions" (1997), "The Legacy of the Harlem Renaissance" (1998), "The Blues Tradition" (African and African American Studies, 2000), and "Celebrating the African American Novel" (2005). More recently, the AATS has developed a lecture and reading series sponsored by Professors B. W. Bell and K. Gilyard, the African American Literature and Language Concentration, and the Office of Educational Equity. Prominent national and international scholars, lecturers, and artists who have participated in this series include Houston Baker, Jr., Horace Clarence Boyer, Victor Hernandez Cruz, Paul Carter Harrison, Marcyliena Morgan, Robert O'Meally, Sterling Plumpp. Geneva Smitherman, Hortense Spillers, Lamont B. Steptoe, James B. Stewart, Askia M. Toure, Quincy Troupe, and Al Young.
Africana Research Center
As their web site states, under the directorship of Associate Professor Beverly Vandiver "The Africana Research Center [ARC] encourages and supports research and scholarship that (a) enhances the lives of Africans across the Diaspora (i.e., African peoples in the Americas, Africa, Europe, and Asia), and [that] (b) serves as a catalyst for promoting an enabling environment where cultural productions and discourse on diversity can be nurtured to advance the research, teaching, and outreach mission of Penn State." In order to fulfill this mission, three funding mechanisms have been established in the ARC: two for faculty and one for students. The funding mechanism for students "will be used to provide matching support of Penn State student projects, particularly honor theses, master's theses, and doctoral dissertations, which reflect the mission of the ARC. The ARC will provide funding up to $1,000 for individual student projects." Also, in conjunction with the College of Liberal Arts and the Office of the Provost, ARC has recently "instituted a two-part initiative to enrich the diversity of scholarship at Penn State. The Emerging Scholars Speakers Series invites talented scholars who conduct research on the African Diaspora to share their research with the Penn State community. Speakers will be early career scholars, meaning that they will either finish their degree with the year or have received it within the year. The second part of the initiative draws on the pool of invited speakers. From the speakers, a number of early career scholars will be offered positions as Africana Research Post-doctoral Fellows. Post-doctoral Fellows will spend a year in residence at Penn State, attend community events, and participate in professional development workshops. Post-doctoral Fellows will have no teaching and no administrative responsibilities."
In collaboration with the Department of African and African American Studies (AAAS), the ARC sponsors each semester a number of interdisciplinary brown bag lectures by University faculty. In collaboration with the Institute for the Arts and Humanities (IAH), the ARC has initiated a project entitled "In Pursuit of Social Justice: Recognizing Pennsylvania Black Artists" with the aim of celebrating the achievements of black artists who were born or have lived in Pennsylvania. Recent activities include a concert by McCoy Tyner, a reading by Bebe Moore Campbell, and a play festival and conference featuring full productions of August Wilson's Fences , Jitney , and Seven Guitars , as well as staged readings of his six other plays.
African American Read-In
Initiated more than 15 years ago by the Black Caucus of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and co-coordinated in Penn State/Centre County Area by Associate Professor Elaine Richardson, the African American Read-In Chain Project is a Black History Month ritual in February that exists in 49 states, the West Indies, and a number of African countries. Over a million readers of all ethnic groups have participated. The primary goal of the project is to make the celebration of African American literacy a traditional and transnational activity. Schools, churches, libraries, bookstores, community and professional organizations, and interested citizens are urged to make literacy a significant part of Black History Month by selecting and reading books by authors of African descent. Professor Richardson recruits faculty, as well as graduate and undergraduate student volunteers, to read and assist in advising the public school students and administrators who participate in community ceremonies at Penn State on the first Sunday and Monday of Black History Month. Guest speakers have included Sharon Draper, Arthur Flowers, Ishmael Reed, and John Rickford.
Research Resources in the Penn State University Library System
The University library system has more than five million volumes and 58,000 periodicals, as well as excellent on-line access to reference sources for African American history, including JSTOR , literature, and visual arts. Also available are a number of collections containing texts documenting the experiences of African Americans, ranging from American Colonization Records, 1792-1964 and Black Abolitionist Papers, 1830-1865 to the Papers of the Congress of Racial Equality, 1941-1967 and Papers of the NAACP. The George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center, which has won a million dollar challenge grant from the NEH, is an excellent resource with its extensive collection of materials for interpreting and reflecting on the period from the Mexican War through the end of Reconstruction. On-line access to reference sources in the performing arts (music, theatre, and dance) and culture in general are extensive. Journals in African American Literature and Language, although not as extensive, range from African American Review and Callaloo to Journal of Black Studies and Journal of Negro History . Another valuable resource affiliated with the library and the Department of English is the Pennsylvania Center for the History of the Book, whose primary mission is "to study, honor, celebrate and promote books, reading, libraries, and literacy to the citizens and residents of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Regional Research Repositories and Resources
Containing more than 40,000 items, the Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection at Temple University in Philadelphia is one of the largest Afro-American collections of its kind at a major university. In addition to Rare Books and Manuscripts and Archives Collections, the Blockson Collection has several special collections, including the Slave Narrative, Underground Railroad, Prints and Photographs, and Oral History Collections. Other major repositories of research materials on African American Literature and Language within a reasonable driving distance of Penn State University include the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in the New York City Public Library, the Moorland-Spingarn Collection in Howard University in Washington, DC, and the James Weldon Johnson Collection at the Beinicke in Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.
African American Literature and Language Specialists in Other Departments
Other departments with specialists in African American Literature and Language who may serve as outside advisors and readers on committees include Professor Wilson Moses in History, Professor James Stewart in Labor and Industrial Relations, Assistant Professor Charles Dumas in Theatre, Associate Professor Ronald Jackson and Assistant Professor Deborah Atwater in Speech and Communications.
Current African American Literature and Language Ph.D. Graduate Students
Aesha Adams, Language and Literacy Practices of Black Women Preachers
Kevin A. Browne, Rhetorical Practice in the Construction of Identity and Democracy in West Indian America
Jiton Davidson, The Black Arts Movement and Third World Press, 1967-1977
Melvette Davis, African American Children's Literature and
Literacies
Pia Deas, Black Satire and the New Black Esthetic
Paulette Gilmore, Existentialism and Black Women Writers
Chaunda McDavis, Telling Our Story: Black Women Writers, Community, and Literary Imagination
Cara Williams, African American Women as Critical Pedagogues
Recent Rhetoric/African American Literature and Language Ph.D. Graduates and Placements
Vorris Nunley, Hush Harbors: Barbershops, Rhetorical Theory, and African American Expressive Culture (Dissertation, 2005; tenure-track at University of California-Riverside)
Howard Rambsy, The New Black Poetry: Its Origins, Poetics, Technical Production, and Criticism (Dissertation, 2004; tenure-track at Southern Illinois University)
Tim Robinson, In the Presence of the Ancestor: History, Culture, and the Literary Imagination in African American Fiction . (Dissertation, 2004; Post-doctoral Fellow at Southwestern University)
Lester Knotts, Black Knights, the Sword, and the Pen: Cultural Cooperation in Cadet Classrooms. (Dissertation, 2003; West Point Military Academy)
Adam Banks, Transformative Access: An African American Rhetoric of Technology. (Dissertation, 2003; tenure-track at Syracuse University)
