Month: August 2012
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P[ublishin’] ain’t Easy
This week I received the copy edited version of my first book manuscript. I was exuberantly happy and excited to reach this point in the production process. I jumped right in to review the copy editor’s suggestions and queries—wondering if I was as good a writer and proofreader as I imagined. I mean, I […]
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Finding Home in John Edgar Wideman’s Homewood
During my three week stay in Pennsylvania for the NEH Summer Institute on Contemporary African American literature, I decided to take the opportunity to visit the home of my paternal grandfather in nearby Pittsburgh. As some families are wont to do, mine took the liberty to write my father out of my personal narrative. It […]
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Why I Love CLA (College Language Association)
I remember my first ever CLA Conference. I was finishing the final course of my doctoral degree and studying for my comprehensive exams. It was April 2005 and the good colored folks were gathering at University of Georgia that year. I had heard of CLA only the previous year, as my mentor and the […]
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Promotion and Tenure–The Long Sojourn
This August marks my sixth year in the professoriate. It has been six years since I defended my dissertation and was hooded by my esteemed advisor Darryl Dickson-Carr. Six years beyond the Ph.D. signifies another milestone in the academic career, particularly for the tenure track appointed, depending on which one of us takes a […]
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African American Literary Studies and the Digital Humanities: Finding an Entrance
On my application for the NEH Summer Institute on Contemporary African American Literature I articulated my desire to think through and discover how African American literature could lend itself to a digital humanities project. I hoped to come away from the institute with a better understanding of what such a project would look like. […]