Education
- BA, History, The College of William and Mary
- MA, African American Studies, University of Maryland Baltimore County
- PhD, African American Studies, Temple University
Public Service (National/International)
- Specialist Reader for MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literature of the U.S.
- Editorial Board member for Africalogical Perspectives
- Executive Council member for DISA (Diopian Institute for Scholarly Advancement) which produces the annual Cheikh Anta Diop Conference in Philadelphia, PA
- Book Review Editor for Africana Studies: A Review of Social Science Research
- Executive Committee member for the annual Black Religion and Spirituality Conference of the Department of African and African American Studies, Michigan State University
Professional Affiliations
- College Language Association (CLA)
- National Council for Black Studies (NCBS)
- Diopian Institute for Scholarly Advancement (DISA)
- Member of the Board of Editors for the Journal of Black Studies
Recent Publications
BOOKS
- Black Cultural Mythology (SUNY Press, in production for late 2019 release)
- Transcendence and the Africana Literary Enterprise (New York: Lexington Books, 2017).
- Literary Spaces: Introduction to Comparative Black Literature (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2007).
- Literary Pan-Africanism: History, Contexts, and Criticism (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2005)
ARTICLES/CHAPTERS
- “Practicing Autoethnography: Transnational Afro-German Heritage.” Locating African European Studies: Interventions—Intersections—Coalitions. Edited by. Felipe Espinoza Garrido, Caroline Kögler, Deborah Nyangulu, and Mark U. Stein. New York: Routledge [Studies on African and Black Diaspora], 2018. (forthcoming).
- “Africana Literature as Social Science: Applying the Demographic Literary Standard (DLS) to Works of August Wilson and Suzan-Lori Parks,” Africana Studies 7 (2016): 1-30.
- “Islam in the Africana Literary Tradition.” Africana Islamic Studies. Edited by James L. Conyers, Jr. and Abul Pitra. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2016. 117-129.
- “Charles Hamilton Houston and Post-New Negro Movement Authority: The Socio-Literary History of a Legal Warrior.” Charles Hamilton Houston: An Interdisciplinary Study of Civil Rights Leadership. Edited by James L. Conyers, Jr. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2012. 171-193.
- “Ancient Kemet in African American Literature and Criticism, 1853 to the Present,”Journal of Pan African Studies 5.4 (June 2012): 129-148.
- “The Cosmology of Afrocentric Womanism,” The Western Journal of Black Studies 36.1 (Spring 2012): 23-32.
- “The Emergence of Sankofa Practice in the United States: A Modern History,” Journal of Black Studies 41.1 (September 2010): 127-150.
- “Communicating Race and Culture in the 21st Century: Discourse and the Post-Racial/Post-Cultural Challenge” invited essay for Journal of Multicultural Discourses 5.1 (March 2010): 45-63.
Research Interests
- African World Literature
- Afrocentric Cultural and Literary Theory and Criticism
- Black Cultural Mythology
- Intersections of History and Literature
- Theatre of African Americans and the Diaspora