What has it meant to produce knowledge and to teach at the intersection of English literature and Black Studies? This dissertation asks after the history and function of Black literary studies as it emerged as an academic discipline in the late 20th century U.S. academy. I propose that Black literary studies' institutional knowledge project is…

In the United States, many academic institutions are plagued by a history of anti-Black racism. Today, librarians from different racial backgrounds who work at libraries at predominantly White colleges and universities are given the important task of describing materials related to African American cultural heritage. This task has the potential to…

This content analysis study examined 99 basal reading narratives from three publishers: Harcourt, SRA-McGraw Hill, and Scott Foresman. The stories were classified according to the ethnicity of the major characters. The observed frequencies were compared to expected frequencies to indicate over representation, adequate representation or under…

This study examined how the use of African American literature that depicts Black males influences the reading comprehension and the reading motivation of Black boys as demonstrated through oral, written, and creative expressions. Studies have been conducted using children's literature with Black boys to examine their social interaction with the…

Zora Neale Hurston, in "TEWWG," deconstructs the image of two important literary tropes that were deeply embedded in the African American literary tradition: the dispirited black female and the tragic mulatto. Both of these characters, Nanny as the dispirited black female and Janie as the tragic mulatto, are haunted by their traumatic histories.…