Since childhood, I’d been fed the constant patriotic narrative of World War II, imbibing the events in which the United States had direct involvement from Pearl Harbor to D-Day to the Battle of the Bulge and more. I never really veered from those stories until I started looking deeper into World War II a few years ago, specifically the connections between Jim Crow and the … Read More The Reverberations of World War II Syllabus
As a kid, my mom would always encourage me to read. I read, yes, but it was never really anything that I did regularly. In fact, I really don’t remember much of what except that I read books like Judy Blume’s Super Fudge during elementary school or parts of Dante’s Inferno during high school. Nothing really stuck with me or had a huge impact … Read More Why Do I Read?
Recently, my daughter and I started a podcast, Classics & Coffee, where we drink coffee and discuss literature. We do five books per season, one joint selection and two book selections apiece. One of my books selections for season one was Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye. I chose this book, partly, because I am teaching it this semester. I also chose it because it pairs … Read More Think About the Children! Ban the “Filth” from Libraries!
+ african american art, african american literature, african americans, france, marseille, Pedagogy, study travel
We’re fully immersed in the “Black Expatriate Writers in France” course in the South of France. As I prepared for this course, I read all of the texts I’m teaching , and I also started to dive into other texts in preparation for the trip. Specifically, I reread Alexandre Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo, and I finally read, even though it takes place … Read More The Pan-Mediterranean Marseille
+ african american art, african american literature, african americans, claude mckay, france, james baldwin, Pedagogy, syllabus, william gardner smith
I’m not sure when I started thinking about leading a study travel trip to France; I only know that I really started thinking about when I was on the job market following my graduation in 2014. In some of my cover letters, if I discussed study travel trips, I would always mention my desire construct a course on African American expatriate writers in France. … Read More Why Did I Want to Teach a Black Expatriate Writers Study Travel Course in France?
Interminable Rambling 