BA, History and Literature, Harvard University
MA, PhD, English, University of Virginia
Dr. Davis specializes in 20th and 21st century American literature, critical race studies, and film studies. She teaches Recent American Fiction, American Modernism, African American literature II, Survey of American Literature, Reading Film Language, Introduction to Graduate Studies, and senior seminars and graduate courses on topics such as the graphic novel, satire, the Harlem Renaissance, black and ethnic writers interrogating whiteness, and animals in literature. She won the Dr. James DiNardo Teaching Award in 2020. She has published two books: Beyond the White Negro: Empathy and Anti-Racist Reading (2014) and Postmodern Texts and Emotional Audiences (2007). Her two most recent articles focus on African American satirist Mat Johnson, and canine captivity in Karen Russell’s short stories. She is also the executive editor of the International Journal of Women's Studies.
Recent Publications:
“The Follies of Racial Tribalism: Mat Johnson's Anti-Utopian Satire,” Contemporary Literature, vol. 58, no. 1, 2017, pp. 18-52.
Beyond the White Negro: Empathy and Anti-Racist Reading (University of Illinois Press, 2014)
Postmodern Texts and Emotional Audiences (Purdue UP, 2007)
Awards:
Dr. James DiNardo Teaching Award
Lois P. Rudnick Book Prize, New England American Studies Association (for Beyond the White Negro)
20th and 21st century American literature, critical race studies, film studies, gender studies