In Memoriam

Education

BA in Education, BGSU

MFA in Painting, Howard University

MA in African American Studies, Yale

MA, MPhil, and Ph.D. in History of Art from Yale University

Research

African American Art History and Yoruba Art and Culture

Selected Publications

Colored Pictures: Race and Visual Representation

ASHÉ: Ritual Poetics in African Diasporic Expressivity (written with Paul Carter Harrison and Pellom McDaniels III)

Fellowships and Honors

 Long-time member of the artist collective, AfriCOBRA

National Board of the National Conference of Artists

Editorial Board of the International Review of African American Art based at Hampton University

Board member for ACASA (Arts Council for the African Studies Association). 

Education

BA Lewis & Clark College

Ph.D. Yale University

Research

American and African American literature

Folklore

Philosophy

Gender studies

Sexuality

Photography

Selected Publications

Jean Toomer’s Years With Gurdjieff: Portrait of an Artist (University of Georgia Press, 1990)

Essentials: the Aphorisms of Jean Toomer ed. (University of Georgia Press,1992; reprint Hill Street Press,1999) with a preface by Charles Johnson

Generations in Black and White: Photographs of Carl Van Vechten from the James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection ed. (University of Georgia Press, 1993)

I Call Myself an Artist: Writings By and About Charles Johnson ed. (Indiana University Press, 1999)

Charles Johnson’s Novels: Writing the American Palimpsest (Indiana University Press, 2005)

The Essential Writings of James Weldon Johnson ed. (Random House, 2008) with a foreword by Charles Johnson

The World Has Changed: Conversations With Alice Walker ed. (New York: The New Press, 2010)

Fellowships and Honors

Thomas Jefferson Award from Emory University

The Governor’s Award in the Humanities

The Dick Bathrick Activist Award from Men Stopping Violence of Atlanta, GA

Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship at Harvard University

The Dorothy Danforth Compton Fellowship at Yale University

Visiting Scholar at the Bellagio Study and Conference Center in Bellagio, Italy