Department of English
Professor Joyce A. Joyce
Chairperson of the English Department and a 1995 recipient of an American Book Award for Literary Criticism for her collection of essays Warriors, Conjurers, and
Priests: Defining African-centered Literary Criticism, Joyce A. Joyce is also the author of Richard Wright’s Art of Tragedy, Ijala: Sonia Sanchez and the African Poetic
Tradition, Black Studies as Human Studies: Critical Essays and Interviews, and editor of Conversations with Sonia Sanchez. Having received her Ph. D. from the University of Georgia in 1979, Professor Joyce taught for ten years at the University of Maryland—College Park, three years at the University of Nebraska—Lincoln, and five years at Chicago State University where she was professor of English, associate director of the
Gwendolyn Brooks Center, coordinator of the Honors Program, and chairperson of the
Black Studies Department. From 1997 to 2001, she was chairperson of the African-
American Studies Department at Temple University, where she is currently a professor in
the English Department.
During the 2008 centennial celebrations of Richard Wright’s birth, she gave one of two
keynote presentations at the American Embassy in Paris at the International Centennial
Celebration of Richard Wright’s birthday, sponsored by The American University in
Paris, and one of two keynotes presentations at Richard Wright at 100, an international
conference held at the Universidade da Beira Interior in Covilha, Portugal; she also gave
addresses on Wright’s work at The University of Virginia, The University of Nebraska—
Lincoln, Ohio State University, and The University of Memphis.
She has published articles on Richard Wright, Toni Morrison, James Baldwin,
Gwendolyn Brooks, Nella Larsen, Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison, Margaret Walker,
Arthur P. Davis, Toni Cade Bambara, E. Ethelbert Miller, Askia Touré, Gil Scott-Heron,
and Sonia Sanchez. Her fields of expertise include African-American literary criticism,
African-American poetry and fiction, feminist theory, and Black lesbian writers.
She is currently completing a collection of essays titled “Black Literary Essays and the
Critical Imagination” and co-editing with Rujuta Chinkolkar-Mandelia an anthology
titled “Readings in Transnational Feminism: Global Dimensions in the 21 st Century.”