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Home: Our Faculty: Brooklyn College Faculty:

James Davis

Assc Professor   Department: English   Location: 3149 Boylan Hall   Phone: 718-951-5784   Fax: 718-951-4612   Email:

I teach in the American Studies Program and the English Department, where I am also the Deputy Chair for Graduate Studies. In 2007, I published a book entitled Commerce in Color: Race, Consumer Culture, and American Literature, 1893-1933 (U Michigan Press). My current research examines the work of Eric Walrond, a Caribbean-born writer and journalist who rose to prominence in New York during the Harlem Renaissance. Education: M.A., Ph.D., Indiana University - 2000 (English - American Literature) B.A., Oberlin College - 1990 (English) Areas of Expertise: I am primarily intersted in the relationship between literature and social history in the U.S. My recent research extends into questions of diasporic, or transnational, racial identity and literature. Books and Publications "Confessions of the Flesh: the Mass Public in Epidermal Trouble in Nathanael West's Miss Lonelyhearts and George Schuyler's Black No More," (reprint) Short Story Criticism 116 (2009): 213-47. (Books and Publications: Peer Reviewed Article) 2009 "Ichiro is a Punk, and Other Lessons from Teaching 'The Immigrant Experience,'" Radical Teacher 84, Special Issue on Immigration and Education (Spring 2009). (Books and Publications: Peer Reviewed Article) 2009 "The World's Columbian Exposition," Oxford Encyclopedia of African-American History (Oxford UP). (Books and Publications: Other Article) 2009 "There Has Been an Inward Change: In Search of Eric Walrond," Modernist Star Maps, Jonathan Goldman and Aaron Jaffe, eds. Ashgate Publishers. (Books and Publications: Chapter) 2009 Rev. of "Look for Me All Around You: Anglophone Caribbean Immigrants in the Harlem Renaissance," by Louis Parascandola (2005), Afro-Americans in New York Life and History 33.1 (Jan. 2009): 141-46. (Books and Publications: Other Article) 2009 "The Art of Grieving: Colm Toibim's 'The Master'" (book review), Death Studies 32: 181-87. (Books and Publications: Other Article) 2008 Commerce in Color: Race, Consumer Culture, and American Literature, 1893-1933 (U Michigan P). (Books and Publications: Book) 2007 "Stage Business as Citizenship: Ida B. Wells at the World's Columbian Exposition," Women's Experience of Modernity: New Voices, New Views, 1875-1945. Ann Ardis and Leslie Lewis, eds. (Johns Hopkins UP). (Books and Publications: Peer Reviewed Article) 2002 "Solid, Liquid, or Gas? Race as a State of Matter in The American Scene," Henry James Review 21:3 (November 2000). (Books and Publications: Peer Reviewed Article) 2000 Awards, Honors and Fellowships Tow Foundation Faculty Research Fellowship recipient (Grants and Fellowships) 2009 Fellow, Leon Levy Center for the Study of Biography, CUNY Graduate Center (Grants and Fellowships) 2008 Mrs. Giles Whiting Award for Excellence in Teaching in the Humanities (Grants and Fellowships) 2005 Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums "Eric Walrond: Writing Beauty, Race, and Rage Across the Caribbean Diaspora," American Comparative Literature Association conference, Harvard University, March 2009. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2009 "Success Story: Writing Brooklyn from Black Britain," American Tropics conference, University of Essex, U.K., July, 2009. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2009 "The Lowly Offices of Lofty Empire: Commercial Clerks in the Fiction of Eric Walrond," Northeast Modern Language Association conference, Boston University, Feb. 2009. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2009 Invited Participant, NEH Summer Seminar, "Hemispheric American Literatures," Columbia University. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2007 "Anticolonial on the River Avon: Eric Walrond's Black British Writing," American Studies Association Conference, Oakland, California. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2006 Professional Leadership Co-organizer, Annual Conference of NY Metro American Studies Association. (Professional Leadership: Organizational Leadership Position) 2007 Editorial Board Member, Radical Teacher (Professional Leadership: Organizational Leadership Position) 2007 Co-organizer, Annual Conference of NY Metro American Studies Association. (Professional Leadership: Organizational Leadership Position) 2006 Member of Executive Board, Brooklyn College Center for Teaching. (Professional Leadership: Organizational Leadership Position) 2006 Other Professional Activities Professional Staff Congress - CUNY, member of Brooklyn College Executive Committee. 2007