My classes are spaces where students and the instructor learn together and are responsible to each other. The classroom is where we discover and exchange the ideas that help explain our world. My experience began with teaching in the Head Start Preschool program. While college-age students do not have to ask to use the restroom like the younger ones (sometimes with precious seconds to spare), they share the excitement and wonder of learning so abundant in preschoolers. For college-age students, I focus on African American literature, and have taught Chicano and American literature, Ethnic Film and Black Art courses. For five years I taught and assisted in the development of the Chicago Academic Achievement Program (CAAP), a summer program facilitating the transition to college for selected underrepresented first-year students at the University of Chicago. I have also taught at community colleges, major research institutions and most recently the Africana Studies (formerly Black Studies) Department at San Francisco State University. My courses at Willamette University focus on African American literature, American literature, and the diversity within American literature.
I study African American literature, nineteenth-century American literature, literary and cultural theory along with pedagogy. My primary research focus is the antebellum slave narrative, the large body of writings by fugitives escaped from America's peculiar institution. Currently, I am completing my dissertation, "The Ironic Perspective of William Wells Brown" for the English Department at the University of Chicago.
