Profile

Keith Leonard

Department Chair, Literature
Literature

  • Additional Positions at AU

    Director, Undergraduate Studies, Department of Literature
    Advisor, Multi-Ethnic Studies Minor
  • Author of Fettered Genius: The African American Bardic Poet from Slavery to Civil Rights, Keith D Leonard did his master's in English at UNC Chapel and his PhD at Stanford.His publications, presentations, and courses have revolved around his study of political consciousness in African American poetry and poetics and in hip-hop culture. His current interests include the nature of introspection in Black Nationalist poetics, African Americans artists in Paris, jazz in African American culture, and the conception of love, sexuality, and family as political ideals by black writers. He is currently working on a book project tentatively titled Black Love: Politics and Passion in Contemporary African American Literature.

  • Degrees

    PhD, Stanford University
    MA, UNC Chapel Hill
    BA, English, Yale University

  • Languages Spoken:

    French

  • OFFICE

  • CAS - Literature
  • Battelle Tompkins - 241

  • CONTACT INFO

  • (202) 885-2987 (Office)
  • Send email Profile UserID

  • MEDIA RELATIONS

  • To request an interview
    please call AU Media Relations
    at 202-885-5950 or
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Partnerships & Affiliations

  • George Moses Horton Society for the Study of African American Poetry

    Member (1998-present)

Teaching

  • Fall 2009

    • LIT-323 Ethnic Literatures of the U.S.: Black Love
    • Description

  • Spring 2010

    • LIT-323 Ethnic Literatures of the U.S.: Post-Soul Aesthetics
    • Description

Scholarly, Creative & Professional Activities

Selected Publications

  • Fettered Genius: The African American Bardic Poet from Slavery to Civil Rights. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2006
  • "Future Imperfect: An Introduction." Callaloo 30.4 (March 2008)
  • "Yusef Komunyakaa's Blues: The Postmodern Music of Neon Vernacular" Callaloo 28.3 (Summer 2005): 825-849
  • Race and Time: American Women's Poetics from Antislavery to Racial Modernity: A Review" Legacy 22.1 (2005): 81-83
  • "Songlines in Michaeltree: New And Selected Poems by Michael Harper: A Review" African American Review 36.2 (Summer 2002)
  • "Hitting A Straight Lick With a Crooked Stick: Gender in the Work of Zora Neale Hurston: A Review" Legacy 18(2) Fall 2001

Professional Presentations

  •  "Tupac: Resurrection" for National Portrait Gallery
  • "Mobilizing the Jazz Age: The Great Gatsby and "The New Negro" for the "Wisdom Wednesday Program" "The Big Read" sponsored by The National Endowment for the Arts, May 21, 2008
  • "Hip-Hop Poetics" at George Washington University, April 28, 2003
  • "Hip-Hop Poetics" at Diversity Day, Packer Collegiate, Brooklyn NY. February 26, 2003

Multimedia

Contribution to Poetry Foundation podcast on the career of Langston Hughes.February 19, 2007.

Work In Progress

  • "African American Women Poets and the Power of the Word." Historical essay on African American Women's Poetry for the Cambridge Companion to African American Women's Literature (forthcoming)
  • "Jazz in African American Literature" for Blackwell's Companion to African American Literature
  • "We Wear the Mask: Towards a Modernist Poetics," with Mark Sanders, for the Cambridge History of African American Literature
  • Special issue of MELUS (Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the United States) on "Multi-Ethnic Poetics," forthcoming 2010
  • Black Love: Politics and Passion in Contemporary African American Literature
  • "A Harmony of Contradictions: The Disciplined Art of Self-Knowledge In Audre Lorde's Black Unicorn," journal article  
  • "The Wound of Desire: Transcendent Love and Racial Affirmation in Charles Johnson's Middle Passage," journal article

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