Books

  • (with Steven Tracy, edited with an introduction), After Winter: The Art and Life of Sterling A. Brown. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. Details.
  • (with Mark A. Sanders, edited with an introduction), A Negro Looks at the South, by Sterling A. Brown. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. Details.
  • (edited with an introduction), Writings of Frank Marshall Davis, A Voice of the Black Press. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2007. Details.
  • (with Cheryl Ragar, edited with an introduction), Montage of a Dream: The Art and Life of Langston Hughes. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2007. Details.
  • (edited with an introduction), Black Moods: Collected Poems , by Frank Marshall Davis. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002. Details.
  • (edited with an introduction), Livin' the Blues: Memoirs of a Black Journalist and Poet by Frank Marshall Davis. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1992. Details.

Book Chapters and Editorial Work

  • “Reading Sterling A. Brown Through the Alembic of Benjamin A. Botkin and Folk-Say.” In Folklore In the Making: Benjamin A. Botkin in American Culture, forthcoming from University of Oklahoma Press.
  • “Frank Marshall Davis (31 December 1905-26 July 1987).” In The Richard Wright Encyclopedia. Eds. Jerry W. Ward and Robert Butler. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2008. 94-96.
  • “The Sounds of Silence: Langston Hughes as a ‘Down Low’ Brother?”. In Montage of a Dream: The Art and Life of Langston Hughes. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2007. 55-67.
  • “The Subversive Vision of Frank Marshall Davis.” Intro. to Writings of Frank Marshall Davis: A Voice of the Black Press. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2007. xiii-xxxii.
  • “Sterling A. Brown” and “Frank Marshall Davis.” Online essays. Posted on BlackPast.org website.
  • “Gordon Parks and the Unending Quest for Self-fulfillment.” In John Brown to Bob Dole: Movers and Shakers in Kansas History. Ed. by Virgil Dean. Lawrence: The University Press of Kansas, 2006. 293-305.
  • “Sterling A. Brown” and “Frank Marshall Davis.” Online essays. The Literary Encyclopedia website.
  • “Weaving Jagged Words into Song.” Intro. to Black Moods: Collected Poems, by Frank Marshall Davis. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002. xxi-lxv.
  • (editor and contributor), “Plateaus of Uncertainty: Symposia on Legacies and the Future of the Race.” My essay “Coming of Age in a Land of Uncertainty” and audience responses to it appear in Cottonwood 56 (Fall 2000): 43-59.
  • (with Robert Hemenway, Valdenia Winn, and Carmaletta M. Williams) “The Legacy of the Harlem Renaissance: A Symposium,” Cottonwood 57 (Spring 2001): 45-61.
  • (compiler and contributor), “The Future of the Race: A Symposium,” Kansas English 85.1 (Spring 2000): 69-82.
  • (compiler and, with Cheryl Lester, co-introducer), "Frank Marshall Davis and the Chicago Black Renaissance," special issue of The Langston Hughes Review 14. 1 & 2 (Spring / Fall 1996).
  • "The Critical Realism of Sterling A. Brown," forthcoming in The Critical Methods of Africa America, edited by R. Baxter Miller.
  • "Exclusivity or Expansion: Canon Formation and the Black Literature Anthology,” forthcoming in The Critical Methods of Africa America, edited by R. Baxter Miller.
  • (contributing editor), "From Renaissance to Mid-Forties," African American Literature. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1992, pp. 379-451.
  • (contributing editor), "Sterling A. Brown," Heath Anthology of American Literature, 1st ed., vol. 2, edited by Paul Lauter, et al. Lexington, MA: DC Heath Publishers, 1990, pp. 1519-1521. Rpt. in 2nd ed., vol. 2, 1994, pp. 1656-71. Rev. and rpt. in 3rd ed., vol. 2, 1998, pp. 1655-70. Rev. and rpt. in 4th ed., vol. 2, 2002, pp. 1640-42. Rev. and rpt. in 5th ed., vol. D, 2006, pp. 1561-62. See also my "Sterling A. Brown," in Instructor's Guide for the Heath Anthology of American Literature, ed. Judith A. Stanford. Lexington, MA: DC Heath Publishers, 1990, pp. 476-79. Rpt. in 2nd ed., edited by John Alberti, 1994, pp. 575-78. Rev. and rpt. in 3rd ed., edited by John Alberti, 1998, pp. 582-85.
  • (guest editor and contributor), "Oh, Didn't He Ramble: Sterling A. Brown (1901-1989)," special section of Black American Literature Forum 23.1 (1989): includes my introduction (p. 89) and my essay "Sterling A. Brown Remembered" (109-111).

Critical Essays, Interviews, and Bibliography

  • “In Defense of African American Culture: Sterling A. Brown, Gunnar Myrdal, and An American Dilemma.” In After Winter: The Art and Life of Sterling A. Brown, 209-23.
  • “Clarifying Philosophy: Sterling A. Brown and the Nonviolent Action Group” (an interview), In After Winter, 379-96.
  • “Weaving Strange Garments: Jazz in the Poetry of Frank Marshall Davis.” Brilliant Corners: A Journal of Jazz and Literature, 6.1 (Winter 2001): 31-39.
  • “Coming of Age in a Land of Uncertainty.” Cottonwood 56 (Fall 2000): 43-59.
  • (with Theodore H. Genoways). “Two Lost Sonnets by Sterling A. Brown.” Callaloo, 21.4 (Fall 1998): 741-44. Reprinted in After Winter, 105-10.
  • "Double Conscious Brother in the Veil: Toward an Intellectual Biography of Sterling A. Brown." Callaloo, 21.4 (Fall 1998): 931-39.
  • (with John S. Wright). "Steady and Unaccusing: An Interview With Sterling A. Brown." Callaloo, 21.4 (Fall 1998): 811-21. Reprinted in After Winter, 353-63.
  • "Alternative Constructions to Black Arts Autobiography: Frank Marshall Davis and 1960s Counterculture." CLA Journal 41.2 (1997): 147-60.
  • "Two Writers Sharing: Sterling A. Brown, Robert Frost, and ‘In Divés's Dive.’" African American Review 13.3 (Fall 1997): 399-408. Rpt. Poetry Criticism, vol. 55. Detroit: Thomson-Gale Publishers, 2004. 134-41. Rpt. In After Winter, 81-93.
  • "'I Was a Weaver of Jagged Words': Social Function in the Poetry of Frank Marshall Davis." The Langston Hughes Review 14. 1 & 2 (Spring/Fall 1996): 65-78.
  • "Brown, Sterling A.," "Davis, Frank Marshall," and "Slim Greer." Oxford Companion to African American Literature. Eds. William L. Andrews, et al. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. 104-106, 202-203, and 673 respectively.
  • "'The Summer of '46': Sterling A. Brown Among the Minnesotans," Black Heartland, 1.l (Spring 1996): 27-41.
  • "Ad Astra Per Aspera: [The Kansas Roots of] Frank Marshall Davis," Kansas History: A Journal of the Central Plains, 18.4 (Winter 1995-1996): 270-82.
  • "Recasting Negro Life History: Sterling A. Brown and the Federal Writers' Project," The Langston Hughes Review 12.2 (Summer-Winter 1995): 77-82.
  • "Reliving the Blues: Frank Marshall Davis and the Crafting of a Self." Intro. to Livin' the Blues, by Frank Marshall Davis. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1992, pp. xiii-xvii.
  • "The Art of Tall Tale in [Sterling A. Brown’s] Slim Greer Poems," Cottonwood Magazine 38/39 (Summer/Fall 1986): 170-176. Reprinted in After Winter as “Slim Greer, Sterling A. Brown, and the Art of Tall Tale,” pp. 149-56.
  • "Frank Marshall Davis." Afro-American Writers from the Harlem Renaissance to 1940. Vol. 51 of Dictionary of Literary Biography. Detroit: Gale Research Co., 1987, 60-66.
  • "Interview With Frank Marshall Davis." Black American Literature Forum 19.3 (1985): 105-108. Rpt. in Black Literature Criticism. Detroit: Gale Research, Inc., 1992, 522-25.
  • (with John S. Wright). "Alain Locke: A Comprehensive Bibliography of His Published Writings." Callaloo Nos. 11-13 vol. 4 nos. 1-3 (1981): 175-92. Rpt. in Bulletin of Bibliography 19.2 (1985): 95-104.
  • (with John S. Wright). "Sterling Brown." Callaloo Nos. 14 &15 5.1-2 (1982): 13.
  • "Interview With Amiri Baraka." Minnesota Daily, 21 October 1980: 7.
  • "Ishmael Reed: Modern Mythmaker: An Essay and Interview." Minnesota Daily, 2 April 1979: 12-13.
  • "Language Arts From a Black Perspective." Outreach: Newsletter of Minnesota University's Afro-American Studies Department 2.1 (1976): 4-5.
  • "Teaching Minority Literatures: A Report." Minnesota English Journal 11.1 (1975): 14-16.

Book and Essay Reviews

  • The Florida Negro: A Federal Writers' Project Legacy, ed. Gary W. McDonogh, The Journal of American History, September 1994, pp. 780-81.
  • Blues, Ideology, and Afro-American Literature: A Vernacular Theory, by Houston Baker, Jr. South Atlantic Review 52.3 (1987): 141-43.
  • The Sage in Harlem: H.L. Mencken and the Black Writers, by Charles Scruggs. Black American Literature Forum 20.3(1986): 341-44.
  • Arna Bontemps--Langston Hughes Letters: 1925-1967, ed. Charles Nichols. Minnesota Daily, 5 May 1980: 12. Rpt. as "Two Writers Sharing." Callaloo Nos. 11-13, vol. 4, nos. 1-3 (1981): 215-17.
  • When Harlem Was in Vogue, by David Levering Lewis. Minnesota Daily, 21-26 September 1981, sec. 2: 18.
  • "The Birth of a Black New Criticism." Rev. of Afro-American Literature: The Reconstruction of Instruction, eds. Dexter Fisher and Robert Stepto. Callaloo No. 7, vol. 2, no. 3 (1979): 111-14.
  • The Collected Poems of Sterling A. Brown, by Sterling A. Brown. Minnesota Daily, 16-20 March 1981: 19, 27.
  • The Correspondence of W.E.B. DuBois, Vol. 3, ed. Herbert Aptheker. Minnesota Daily, 21 July 1980: 8. Rpt. as "A Long and Illustrious Career," in Callaloo Nos. 8-10, vol. 3, nos. 1-3 (1980): 221-24.
  • The Journey Back: Issues in Black Literature and Criticism, by Houston Baker, Jr. Minnesota Daily, 7 July 1980: 6.
  • Chant of Saints: A Gathering of Afro-American Literature, Art, and Scholarship, eds. Michael S. Harper and Robert Stepto and From Behind the Veil: A Study of Afro-American Narrative, by Robert Stepto. Minnesota Daily, 7 April 1980: 9. Rpt. as "Afro-American Literature Reinterpreted," in Callaloo Nos. 8-10, vol. 3, nos. 1-3 (1980): 233-36.
  • Selected Poetry of Amiri Baraka / LeRoi Jones, by Amiri Baraka. Minnesota Daily, 31 March 1980: 16.
  • Amiri Baraka / LeRoi Jones: A Quest for a "Populist Modernism," by Werner Sollors. Minnesota Daily, 11 February 1980: 9.
  • Yardbird Lives, ed. Ishmael Reed. Minnesota Daily, 29 January 1979: 15, 19.
  • Zora Neale Hurston: A Literary Biography, by Robert Hemenway. Minnesota Daily, 30 May 1978: 12, 16.