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About A Yęmisi Jimoh

A Yęmisi Jimoh is an educator, leader, and scholar. She is faculty in the W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. As a literary and cultural analyst, she focuses her scholarship and teaching on African American culture and literary studies, with additional research interests in critical race studies, narratology, and onomastics. Professor Jimoh offers courses in twentieth-century African American literature and has particular interests in African American literary movements and African American women novelists. 

Her leadership includes roles in collective bargaining, governance, and executive oversight, such as chair of the Faculty Senate Rules Committee at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and president of the Society for the Study of the Multi-ethnic Literature of the United States, a prominent national literary society where for more than two decades she also has served as a member of the editorial board for the Society's internationally distributed and award winning journal, MELUS.

Professor Jimoh’s published writings and creative projects include the scholarly monograph Spiritual, Blues, and Jazz People in African American Fiction (Tennessee, 2002), reviews or articles in African American Review, MELUS, Texas Journal of Political Studies, Western Journal of Black Studies, and Black Scholar (photos) as well as chapters in Contemporary African American Novelists and in the multi-award-winning (Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award and the American Educational Studies Association Critics' Choice Award) volume Race in the College Classroom: Pedagogy and Politics. Her recent scholarly projects include two co-edited volumes: MELUS: Twenty-First Century Perspectives on US Ethnic Literatures (with Angelo Rich Robinson 2018) and These Truly are the Brave: An Anthology of African American Writings on War and Citizenship (with Françoise Hamlin; Florida 2015; revised paperback 2018)Dr. Jimoh's ongoing research focuses on issues of Pan-Africanism and Diaspora in African American literature and culture as well as on the cultural politics of group-name identifiers in African American fictional texts.

Yęmisi Jimoh also includes among her accomplishments selection as a Chancellor's Leadership Fellow at UMass Amherst, participation in the HERS Bryn Mawr Leadership Institute, a Visiting Fellowship at Harvard University in the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for Research in Afro-American Studies, participation in the National Endowment for the Humanities’ Summer Institute on the Civil Rights Movement, Modern Language Association (MLA) certified department reviewer, and a consulting faculty for Advanced Placement African American Studies for The College Board.

Positions

2005 - Present Professor, University of Massachusetts Amherst W. E. B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies
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2015 - 2016 Chancellor's Leadership Fellow, University of Massachusetts Amherst
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2012 - 2015 President, MELUS, University of Massachusetts Amherst
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2011 - 2013 Senior Editor for African American Literature and Culture, Literary Encyclopedia, University of Massachusetts Amherst
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Education

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PhD, University of Houston ‐ Department of English
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MAT, University of Washington ‐ Department of English
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BA, University of Washington ‐ Department of English
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Contact Information

329 New Africa House
University of Massachusetts
Amherst, MA 01003
Tel: 413-545-2751

Email:


Books and Edited Journals (4)

Articles (2)

Contributions to Books (2)

Other (24)