Farah Jasmine Griffin and African American Literary Studies

At some point, in our continuing efforts to chart the development and scope of African American literary studies, we will need to reckon with the many contributions of one of the field’s most influential figures, Farah Jasmine Griffin. For me, she has certainly been a model of possibility, offering multiple blueprints and routes.

I was inclined to briefly comment on her contributions after listening to her talk yesterday.

Back in 1995, Grifin she hit the scene with "Who Set You Flowin'?" The African-American Migration Narrative and has been producing groundbreaking work ever since. Her books include the If You Can't Be Free, Be a Mystery: In Search of Billie Holiday (2001),  Clawing at the Limits of Cool: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and the Greatest Jazz Collaboration Ever (with Salim Washington, 2008), Harlem Nocturne: Women Artists and Progressive Politics During World War II (2013), and more recently, In Search of a Beautiful Freedom: New and Selected Essays (2023).

In 2021, I did a series of blog posts on her book Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature, which touched on her work but likely did not go far enough in noting how Griffin has been one of our discipline's most critical cultural witnesses. She began her career at the University of Pennsylvania in the 1990s and moved to Columbia University around 2000, where she has since built a distinguished career. 

Consider that Griffin entered the profession in the mid-1990s, during a defining moment when African American literary studies was developing in new and consequential ways. There is understandably a tendency to focus on more prominent figures from that period—Henry Louis Gates Jr., bell hooks, Houston A. Baker Jr., Barbara Christian, Hazel Carby, and Trudier Harris among others. But Griffin, a junior to those figures, was there as well, just at an earlier stage of her career. Her soft-spoken and measured style also placed her somewhat outside the more visible Black public intellectual circuit that gained prominence during that period.

At Columbia University, Griffin became a member of the influential Jazz Study Group, which helps explain her sustained engagement with jazz. Founded by Robert G. O'Meally, the group brings together scholars, musicians, critics, and students for wide-ranging discussions of the music. O’Meally, Brent Hayes Edwards, and Griffin later co-edited Uptown Conversation: The New Jazz Studies (2004), a volume that reflects the intellectual energy of the group's exchanges. 

Based on various articles and presentations over the last two decades, Griffin is viewed as one of our leading Toni Morrison scholars. If you were hosting a gathering on Morrison at Princeton or Cornell or wherever, and you wanted expert thoughts on Morrison, then you likely thought of Farah Jasmine Griffin.

So it's possible that a large group of people know Griffin as a jazz scholar, and then a whole other group know her as a literary scholar. And there's more. She's been an important chronicler of Black Studies based on this notable document, Inclusive Scholarship: Developing Black Studies in the United States: A 25th Anniversary Retrospective of Ford Foundation Grant Making, 1982-2007. She also provided key leadership as the inaugural chair of its African American and African Diaspora Studies Department at Columbia.

When I spoke Griffin her after talk, somehow the subject of William J. Harris came up. "Did you know he was one of my professors?" she asked.  

"Did I know?" I responded, "You're one of the main reasons I can never become his top student of all time. Of course I know you're one of his former students."

We laughed. 

Griffin, Dana A. Williams, Brent Hayes Edwards, Saidiya Hartman, Mark Anthony Neal represent a generational cohort of literary and cultural scholars who made notable contributions to African American literary studies over the decades. We also have to add Alondra Nelson to that mix. While she's not a literary scholar, her work on Afrofuturism affected so many of us. And obviously, there are dozens more than the ones I've just named. 

It is worth thinking about a figure like Griffin for multiple reasons. She has produced outstanding work, for one. She also offers a clear sense of what a long, noteworthy career can look like. More than that, she stands as a testament to the possibilities of working across multiple disciplines, distinguishing herself through scholarship on jazz as well as Black literary and cultural history.

You trying to get a sense of what's possible as a literary scholar or an intellectual in general? Then, you likely want to think of Farah Jasmine Griffin. 

Farah Jasmine Griffin on Black Women Friendships

On March 17, Farah Jasmine Griffin delivered a talk at Washington University in St. Louis as part of the African Diaspora Literature and Culture guest lecture series, hosted by Julius Fleming. Titled “Safe Harbor: Black Women and the Art of Friendship,” the talk offered reflections from a project still in its early stages.

[Related: Farah Jasmine Griffin and African American Literary Studies]

Griffin began by discussing friendships among enslaved women before turning to the relationship between Obour Tanner and Phillis Wheatley. She then moved to the friendship between Toni Morrison and Toni Cade Bambara. Across these examples, Griffin shared insights drawn from her study of letters exchanged among these women. Particularly striking was the discussion of Wheatley’s letters to Tanner—letters that Tanner preserved, passed down, and that are now housed at the Massachusetts Historical Society.  

Griffin also reflected on the close bond between Morrison and Bambara, noting that such friendships often emerged within larger gatherings of Black women, with deeper connections forming among smaller groups. At the same time, she emphasized that studying written correspondence can require a degree of speculation, especially when only one side of an exchange survives.

Fittingly, the conversation extended into the Q&A. Griffin’s friend and colleague Dwight McBride, who was in attendance, offered comments that helped advance the discussion. He observed that conversations about relationships often move too quickly to extremes—friends or enemies—whereas he prefers to think in terms of a continuum, from associates to more intimate friendships. His remarks prompted Griffin to elaborate further on her evolving ideas.

During his comments, McBride pointed out that Griffin should talk to Beverly Guy-Sheftall, noting her long-standing friendship with Alice Walker. Griffin’s response, that she would follow up with “Beverly,” offered a small telling glimpse of who's in her network of friends and colleagues. That Griffin-McBride-Guy-Shetftall-Walker moment is suggestive of the many interconnected relationships that quietly shape African American literary studies.

Toward the end of the Q&A, responding to audience comments, Farah Jasmine Griffin reiterated that she is less concerned with the broader politics or public implications of these friendships, what they might signify to others, than with what they meant in the lives of those women themselves.

She also noted that she does not always have precise language to describe the interactions among these women. In reflecting on this challenge, Griffin referenced a collection of letters she previously edited, where the women addressed one another as “beloved sisters and loving friends.”

Masking in The Boondocks

A brief take on layered metaphorical masking in The Boondocks, showing how Aaron McGruder’s satire stacks voices and cultural references, linking Samuel L. Jackson’s role in Pulp Fiction, Donald Rumsfeld’s infamous “unknown unknowns,” and a cartoon performance of political critique, to reveal how masking can function as comedy and cultural remix.

Script by Howard Rambsy II 

Narration by Kassandra Timm

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Related:

• Episodes of Remarkable Receptions

From Nine Citations to Thousands: Toni Morrison in Dissertation Research

Over the past five decades, dissertation data reveals the remarkable rise of Toni Morrison as the most central Black woman writer in African American literary studies.

Using ProQuest One Literature’s database of dissertations, I took a look at six Black women writers – Gwendolyn Brooks, Nikki Giovanni, Zora Neale Hurston, Harriet Jacobs, Toni Morrison, and Alice Walker – decade by decade from 1970 – 2026. I was curious about their appearances in dissertations and MA theses during that time and how they evolved. I was intrigued by the rise of Morrison as the now most central figure in African American literary studies.

During the 1970s, Morrison was cited in just 9 dissertations and theses, making her next to the lowest, only above Jacobs. During the 1980s, Morrison steadily became a more cited author rising to 144. She was now behind only Hurston at 159 citations and Walker at 255 citations.

During the 1990s was when Morrison became the most cited of the group at 1,514. During the 2000s, she rose to 2,434 citations, and she dipped, by her standards, to 1,749 during the 2010s. So far, from 2020 – 2026, she’s at 1,056 citations.

The big shift for Morrison occurs after 1987, with the publication of Beloved. That work stands as Morrison’s most critically acclaimed. The tabulation of the citations on the ProQuest dissertation database makes it possible to see how dramatically Morrison’s position within African American literary studies expanded during the decades following that novel’s publication. 

From just 9 citations in the 1970s to more than 2,400 in the 2000s, Morrison experienced an increase of well over 26,000 percent, illustrating how rapidly she moved from a relatively minor presence in dissertations to the most studied writer among this group. No other writer in the dataset experienced a shift as dramatic, moving from near the margins of dissertation research in the 1970s to the most studied Black woman writer by the 1990s.

Related:

• Dissertation Citations for Six Black Women Writers, 1970–2026

Dissertation Citations for Six Black Women Writers, 1970–2026

Using the ProQuest One Literature dissertation database, I compiled tallies of how often selected Black women writers appear in dissertations and MA theses from 1970 through 2026. The figures below track those counts and provide a glimpse into how scholarly attention to these writers has evolved across decades. 

Dissertation and Thesis Citations by Decade 

1970 – 1979
Gwendolyn Brooks — 75
Nikki Giovanni — 39
Zora Neale Hurston — 54
Harriet Jacobs — 3
Toni Morrison — 9
Alice Walker — 127

1980 – 1989
Gwendolyn Brooks — 73
Nikki Giovanni — 45
Zora Neale Hurston — 159
Harriet Jacobs — 14
Toni Morrison — 144
Alice Walker — 255

1990 – 1999
Gwendolyn Brooks — 230
Nikki Giovanni — 140
Zora Neale Hurston — 874
Harriet Jacobs — 454
Toni Morrison — 1,514
Alice Walker — 1,206

2000 – 2009
Gwendolyn Brooks — 356
Nikki Giovanni — 200
Zora Neale Hurston — 1,258
Harriet Jacobs — 670
Toni Morrison — 2,434
Alice Walker — 1,292

2010 – 2019
Gwendolyn Brooks — 274
Nikki Giovanni — 169
Zora Neale Hurston — 834
Harriet Jacobs — 454
Toni Morrison — 1,749
Alice Walker — 769

2020 – 2026
Gwendolyn Brooks — 136
Nikki Giovanni — 90
Zora Neale Hurston — 437
Harriet Jacobs — 204
Toni Morrison — 1,056
Alice Walker — 428

The figures are listed alphabetically by author to make cross-decade comparisons easier.

Related:

• From Nine Citations to Thousands: Toni Morrison in Dissertation Research

Conversing Almost 30 Years with William J. Harris about Amiri Baraka

Back in 2009, the guys in one of my classes were surprised and fascinated when I told them that I had been having an active conversation about Amiri Baraka with my former professor William J. Harris for ten years. The guys in subsequent years were just as impressed, and in fall 2026, when I let the young men know that Professor Harris and I have been talking about Baraka for 27 years, they'll likely be impressed as well.

Back in 2000, when I read the acknowledgements of Lorenzo Thomas's book Extraordinary Measures: Afrocentric Modernism and 20th-Century American Poetry, he noted that his work had benefited from “a lively conversation with Jerry W. Ward, Jr., that has continued for two decades.” At the time, the idea of a twenty-year conversation with someone about African American literary art and authors seemed almost unthinkable to me. But now, it feels normal.

A couple weeks ago, I was sharing some thoughts about Phillis Wheatley and Amiri Baraka with Professor Harris. I understand why the young men in my classes from the past several years find this decades-long exchanges so striking. My conversations about Baraka with Professor Harris have persisted longer than my current students have been alive.

The guys are also intrigued because they have had little experience with the idea of a Black man having an extended conversation about the arts with a senior Black man who is not a father or uncle. More than a few of them laugh and look skeptical when I tell them that I expect to talk with them for decades about ideas, the arts, and artists like Baraka as well.

For these reasons, they enjoy hearing about my intellectual conversation journey with Professor Harris. We first met in 1999 when I visited Penn State while considering graduate school. We started talking about Baraka then and continued those conversations during my time as a graduate student in his classes. Over time, our discussions expanded to include various other literary artists, the Black Arts Movement, and jazz.

After I earned my PhD and began my professional career as a teacher, we kept touching base and continuing those conversations about Baraka and those other topics. Eventually we added new subjects as well, such as new Black writers who had emerged and the work of visual artists.

Talking with Professor Harris about Baraka for nearly three decades has shown me how intellectual dialogue can stretch across an extended period of time.

Related:

• A Notebook on the Work of Amiri Baraka

• A Notebook on William J. Harris

Writing about Readers and Reading

By Joyce Woodard

I’ve only been working as a contributing writer-researcher for nearly a month, and it has already been extremely beneficial to me.

As a journalism major, it has been so exciting to interview students and write new entries every week. Prior to this opportunity, I was only writing assignments, which is an issue, seeing as though I want to pursue journalism/writing professionally.

Growing as a writer is what I enjoy the most, but speaking to Black women students every week has also been a meaningful highlight of this journey. I've had the chance to speak to so many intelligent and determined Black women, which I have found incredibly inspiring.

My experience so far has been amazing, and I can’t wait to see how much more I will have improved and learned by the end of the semester.

Related:

• Notes on Black Readers & Digital Culture

From Dataset to Interpretation

By Jade Harrison

Identifying patterns requires careful observation, analysis, and the aggregation of large amounts of data, but interpreting what those patterns mean requires textual analysis, contextualizing, and describing the deeper meaning of trends that emerge.

Gabriella Pardlo, a member of our Data Ranger team, imagines the possibilities that open up when we use literary analysis to contextualize numerical trends across 300 short stories, noting that the archive we are creating, “allows people to make widespread connections. They can easily examine the writing techniques Black authors lean on in order to be successful.” 

Rather than analyzing one individual Black writer’s approaches to character representation, dialogue, and settings, combining the data annotations and analyzing them as whole allows us to identify overarching patterns across the stories and make connections between writers from the 1880s to the 2020s. I find that color-coding by annotations for a story before organizing my exploratory findings into an accessible data sheet helps ensure that my critical interpretations of characters, spaces, and spoken exchanges remain grounded in close reading.

When reviewing multiple annotated stories together, I begin to notice patterns in character dialogue, including gendered trends in who speaks and receives the most dialogue and the locations where these exchanges take place. The gendered dynamics of which characters speak and receive the most dialogue in early-20th-century Black women’s fiction, for instance, shifts in the late 20th century with the increased visibility of Black women writers. Pattern recognition is only the first step of literary analysis, because those findings are meaningless without literary analysis and contextualization to understand the diversity of themes, genres, characters, and geographical locations that Black writers create in their literary artistry.

In my work, quantitative patterns reveal how often and in what tones certain types of characters speak and receive dialogue during spoken exchanges, but literary interpretation allows me to contextualize these findings to show how they offer significant insight into how writers depict voice, agency, and emotional interiority in Black fiction.

Related:

• The Black Short Story Project