Elizabeth J. West, PhD
Professor of English, Georgia State University
Amos Distinguished Chair in English Letters
Academic Director, GSU-CAS Center for the Study of Africa and Its Diaspora (CSAD) https://csad.gsu.edu/
PI,Mellon Foundation Intersectional Studies Grant 2022-2025
Member, UMMC Asylum Hill Research Consortium (AHRC)
Advisory Board, Obama Institute for Transnational Studies,
Former Treasurer, College Language Association, 2016 -2020
Former Ex Dir, South Atl Modern Lang Assoc, 2015-2020
Education: Emory University PhD English, Certificate in Women’s Studies
My work engages studies on spirituality and gender in African Diaspora Literatures of the Americas, and I am particularly interested in early works. I co-edit the Roman & Littlefield book series, Black Diasporic Worlds: Origins and Evolutions from New World Slaving. I am the author of African Spirituality in Black Women’s Fiction (Lexington Books 2011), coeditor of Literary Expressions of African Spirituality (Lexington Books 2013). My other publications can be found in critical anthologies and in journals such as Religions, MELUS, Amerikastudien, CLAJ, PALARA, JCCH, Womanist, Black Magnolias, and South Central Review.
Some Highlights:
Forthcoming USC Press, Dec 2022: Finding Francis
“Lift Every Voice: Atlanta’s Contribution to the Black Poetic Tradition.” 2021. A Library of America, AARL, Schomburg, CSAD collaboration.
Five Points Podcast on Nikky Finney Interview. 2019. http://fivepoints.gsu.edu/nikky-finney-and-mentorship/
March 2017 article, “How World War I sparked the artistic movement that transformed black America,” in The Conversation
Among scholars interviewed and consulted in the production of Georgia Public Broadcasting’s award winning documentary on the 75th anniversary of Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind.
