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Keith Leonard Associate Professor Literature

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

Languages Spoken
French
Bio
Keith D Leonard is the author of Fettered Genius: The African American Bardic Poet from Slavery to Civil Rights. 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 African Americans artists in Paris, jazz in African American culture, and the evolving innovations of Afrofuturism. He is currently working on a book project entitled Black Avant-Gardism that explores the role of African American writers' collectives in the artistic innovations, public profiles, and cultural impact of contemporary African American poets.
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For the Media
To request an interview for a news story, call 麻豆视频 Communications at 202-885-5950 or submit a request.

Teaching

Fall 2024

  • CORE-105 Complex Problems Seminar: Imagining the Good Life

  • LIT-247 Contemporary Poetry

Spring 2025

  • AFAM-335 Studies in African Am Lit: The Black Arts Movement

  • LIT-262 Literature & the Ethical Life

Partnerships & Affiliations

  • George Moses Horton Society for the Study of African American Poetry
    Member (1998-present)

Scholarly, Creative & Professional Activities

Selected Publications

  • 听Fettered Genius: The African American Bardic Poet from Slavery to Civil Rights. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2006

  • "Postmodern Soul: The Innovative Nostalgia of Thomas Sayers Ellis,"听Contemporary Literature听56.2 (Summer 2015): 340-371.听 Winner of the L. S. Dembo prize for best article of the year.

  • 鈥溾榃hich Me Will Survive鈥: Rethinking Identity, Reclaiming Audre Lorde.鈥 听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听 Callaloo 35.3 (Summer 2012): 758-777听 听

  • "Yusef Komunyakaa's Blues: The Postmodern Music of Neon Vernacular" Callaloo 28.3 (Summer 2005): 825-849.
  • 鈥淛azz in African American Literature鈥 Blackwell鈥檚 Companion to African American Literature听 (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010): 286-301.听听
  • 鈥淲e Wear the Mask: The Making of An African American Poet鈥 Cambridge History of African American Literature (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011): 209-219.
  • 鈥淎frican American Women Poets and the Power of the Word.鈥澨 Cambridge Companion to African American Women's Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009): 168-186.听听
  • 鈥淰erse Center: A Special Issue on Multi-Ethnic Poetics鈥 Melus 35.2 June 2010 (co-editor)
  • "His Vagabond Heart"听Poetry Foundation听https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/157182/his-vagabond-heart

Multimedia

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

"" for the Arlingron Public Library, April 29. 2021

Professional Presentations

  • 听鈥淭ouching Dark Matter: Afrofuturism鈥檚 Body of Knowledge鈥 at the History Seminar on Contemporary Science, Technology, and Culture, the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, October 17, 2019
  • 鈥溾楤lack Is鈥n鈥 Black Ain鈥檛鈥: Twenty-First Century African American Poetics鈥 at Duquesne University, October 3, 2018
  • 鈥淓xperimental Blackness鈥 at Theorizing Black Literature Now Conference at 听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听 Rutgers University, February 12, 2016
  • "Blackness as Form, Blackness as Innovation," as Visiting Faculty at an NEH Institute, Don't Deny My Voice, National Endowment for the Humanities, University of Kansas. (July 29, 2015)

Work In Progress

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