Faculty Directory
Bernard W. BellLiberal Arts Research Professor of English
Contact:
21 Burrowes Building
University Park, PA 16802
Office Phone: 814-865-9964
bwb4@psu.edu
Office Hours:
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday 11-12
Educational History:
Ph.D. University of Massachusetts, Amherst
M.A., B.A. Howard University
D. C. Teachers College
George Washington University
Research Interests:
American and African American language, literature, and culture, especially vernacular and narrative theory and practices.
Specialties include folklore, humor, satire, Mark Twain, William Faulkner, W. E. B. Du Bois, Clarence Major, and Toni Morrison.
Awards:
American Book Award for The Contemporary African American Novel, 2005
Senior Fulbright Scholar Lecturer, Beijing Foreign Studies University, The People's Republic of China, February - July, 2004
Fulbright Senior Specialist (Spain), November 17-25, 2003
Fulbright senior Specialist, November 15, 2002
Howard B. Palmer Faculty Mentoring Award, Penn State University, March 25, 2002
Faculty/Staff Diversity Recognition, PSU Multicultural Resource Center, April 2001
The International Literary Hall of Fame for Writers of African Descent, The Gwendolyn Brooks Center of Chicago State University, October 2000
Dubois/Garvey Pan African Unity Award, Morgan State University, April 1999
PSU Class of 1933 Award for Distinction in the Humanities, April 1999
Senior Fulbright-Hays Scholar, University of Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain, January-June 1996
Ronald E. McNair Achievement Program Certificate of Appreciation, Coppin State College, March 1995
National Council Teachers of English Certificate of Achievement, April 1995
Outstanding Educator, Girl Friends, Inc., 1990
College Language Association Creative scholarship Book Prize 1989
Senior Fulbright-Hays Scholar, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal, October1982-July 1983
National Endowment of the Humanities, Young Humanist Fellowship, July 1972-January 1973
National Defense Education Act Fellowship, 1965, 1968-1969
Phi Kappa Phi Honors Society, 1969
Major Publications:
The Contemporary African American Novel: Its Folk Roots and Modern Literary Branches (University of Massachusetts Press, 2004)
Clarence Major and His Art: Portraits of an African American Postmodernist, ed. Bernard W. Bell, (University of North Carolina Press, 2001)
Contemporary Literature of the African Diaspora, eds. Bernard W. Bell and Olga Barrios, (University of Salamanca Press, 1997)
Call and Response: The Riverside Anthology of African American Literary Tradition, gen. ed. Patricia L. Hill; eds. Bernard W. Bell, Trudier Harris, William J. Harris, R. Baxter Miller, & Sondra A. O'Neale (with Horace A. Porter), (Houghton Mifflin, 1997)
W. E. B. DuBois on Race and Culture, eds. Bernard W. Bell, Emily Grosholz, and James Stewart, (Routledge Press, 1996)
The Folk Roots of Contemporary Afro-American Poetry (Broadside Press, 1974)
Modern and Contemporary Afro-American Poetry, ed. Bernard W. Bell, (Allyn and Bacon, 1972)
Other Publications:
"Booker T. & W. E. B.: The Authority and Authenticity of African American Double Consciousness," Black Nationalists: Reconsidering Du Bois, Garvey, Booker T. & Nkrumah, eds. S. Okechukwu Mezu and Rose Ure Mezu (Black Academy Press, 1999), 133-144.
"The Liberating Literary and African American Vernacular Voices of Gayl Jones," Comparative Literature Studies. 36.3 (1999): 247-258.
"The Dual Tradition of African American Fiction: An Interpretation," Encarta (CD-ROM), Afropaedia, eds. Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (1999, 15 pages).
"The Quest for Identity in the African American Novel," Estudios de Literatura en Lengua Inglesa del Siglo XX (4), eds. Pilar Abad Garcia, Jose Manuel Barrio Marco, Jose Maria Ruiz (Valladolid, Espana: Servicio de Apoyo a la Ensenanza, Universidade de Valladolid, 1998), 29-38.
"Saline Consciousness and Hybrid Identities: Race, Gender and Class Issues in Contemporary Literature in the African Diaspora," Contemporary Literature in the African Diaspora (Salamanca, Spain: Department of English Philology, 1997), 11-17.
"Nails, Snails, and Puppy-Dog Tails: Black Male Stereotypes in the Fiction of Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, and Terry McMillan," Contemporary Literature of the African Diaspora (Salamanca, Spain: Department of English Philology, 1997), 67-74.
"Genealogical Shifts in Du Bois's Discourse on Double Consciousness as the Sign of African American Difference" in W. E. B. DuBois on Race and Culture (NY: Routledge, 1996), 87-108.
"Malcolm, Martin, and the Black Jeremiadic Cry of Our Cities," The World and I. (July, 1993) 453-63.
" Beloved: A Womanist Neo-slave Narrative; or Multivocal Remembrances of Things Past," African American Review (Spring 1992), 7-15; rpt. Critical Essays on Toni Morrison's Beloved, ed. Barbara H. Solomon (Boston: Twayne, 1998), 166-176; rpt. Modern Critical Interpretations: Toni Morrison's Beloved, ed. Harold Bloom (Philadelphia, PA: Chelsea House, 1999), 57-68; rpt. Bloom's Guides: Toni Morrison's Beloved, ed. Harold Bloom (Philadelphia, PA: Chelsea House, 2004), 53-57.
National Professional Service:
American Studies Association, 1988-present
Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States Society, 1988-present
Northeast Modern Language Association, 1971-1973
Modern Language Association (MLA), 1971-1978, 1987-present
MLA Delegate Assembly, 1995-1997
MLA Executive Committee Division of Black American Literature & Culture, 1995-1999
MLA Chair, Division of Black American Literature and Culture, 1997-1998
College Language Association, 1971-present
National Council of Teachers of English, 1971-present
