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Venetria Patton
Associate Professor, Department of English
Director, African American Studies Research Center
Office Phone: (765) 494-5680
Office Fax: (765) 496-1581
Email: vpatton@purdue.edu
Specialization:
African American and Diasporic Women’s Literature, African American Literature, 19th c. American Literature, & Feminist Discourse
Dr. Venetria K. Patton
Dr. Venetria K. Patton joined Purdue University on August 1, 2003, as Director of African American Studies and Research Center and Associate Professor of English. She is also affiliated with the American Studies and Women’s Studies Programs. Prior to her appointment at Purdue, Dr. Patton was an Associate Professor of English and African American Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she served in a number of administrative capacities including a term as Coordinator of African American and African Studies. She earned her B.A. in English from the University of La Verne and her M.A. and Ph.D. in English from the University of California-Riverside. Dr. Patton’s teaching and research focus on African American and Diasporic Women’s Literature. In 2003, she won two teaching awards: the Annis Chaiken Sorensen Distinguished Teaching Award in the Arts and Humanities and the College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Teaching Award from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Dr. Patton is the author of Women in Chains: The Legacy of Slavery in Black Women’s Fiction (SUNY, 2000), the Co-editor of Double-Take: A Revisionist Harlem Renaissance Anthology (Rutgers, 2001) and editor of Teaching American Literature: Background Readings (Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2006). Her essays have appeared in Black Studies and Women’s Studies journals as well as the essay collections, Postcolonial Perspectives on Women Writers From Africa, the Caribbean, and the US (Africa World Press, 2003) and White Scholars/African American Texts (Rutgers UP, 2005). She is also the co-editor of the spring 2004 issue of The Black Scholar. Dr. Patton is pursuing several new research projects, including a book-length study on elders and ancestors in African American women's fiction.
Publications:
Books:
Background Readings for Teachers of American Literature
Compiled by Venetria Patton, director of African American Studies at Purdue University, this collection of articles offers classic and current perspectives on teaching American literature. Organized according to popular approaches, including literary and social movements, identities, and the geopolitical. American Literature is relevant to a wide range of courses, from literature surveys to graduate seminars. American Literature
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Double-Take: A Revisionist Harlem Renaissance Anthology. Edited with Maureen Honey. New Brunswick: Rutgers P, 2001. Cloth and paper. 21p introduction + 619pp. Buy Online - Click Here!
Women in Chains: The Legacy of Slavery in Black Women’s Fiction. Albany: SUNY P, 2000. Cloth and paper. 194 pp. Choice 2000 Outstanding Academic Book. Buy Online - Click Here!
Journal Editing:
The Black Scholar: Africana Experiences in the Americas: Cultural Histories, Relationships, and Identities. Guest Editor with Ronald J. Stephens. 34.1: (2004).*
Articles and Chapters in Books:
“White Scholars in African American Literary Circles: Appropriation or Cultural Literacy?,” White Scholars/African American Texts, Ed. Lisa Long. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 2005. 87-96.
“‘Yes, Anyone With Half an Eye Could See That it Wasn’t She’: Helga Crane’s Resistance to Representation.” Postcolonial Perspectives on Women Writers From Africa, the Caribbean, and the US, Ed. Martin Japtok. Trenton: Africa World Press, 2003. 69-89.
“Come Colour My Rainbow: Themes of Africana Womanism in the Poetic Vision of Audrey Kathryn Bullett.” with Ronald J. Stephens and Maureen Keavney. Journal of Black Studies 32.4 (2002): 464-478.
“Policing Our Daughters’ Bodies: Mothering in Africana Literature.” The Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering 2.2 (2000): 176-87.
“Seen But Not Heard. . . The Racial Gap Between Feminist Discourse and Practice: A Dialogue.” with Kimberly Nettles. Frontiers 21.3 (2000): 64-81.
“Narrating Competing Truths in the Thomas Jefferson- Sally Hemings Paternity Debate.” with Ronald Jemal Stephens. The Black Scholar 29.4 (1999): 8-15.
Book Reviews:
Review of Go Gator and Muddy the Water: Writings by Zora Neale Hurston from the Federal Writers’ Project edited and with a biographical essay by Pamela Bordelon. Resources for American Literary Study 28 (2002) 217-19. (appeared in 2003)
Review of Fighting Words: Black Women & the Search for Justice by Patricia Hill Collins. (forthcoming, The Ethnic Studies Review).
Review of Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood by bell hooks. Prairie Schooner 73.4 (1999): 165-7.
Review of Heroism and the Black Intellectual by Jerry Gafio Watt. American Literature 67.2 (1995): 413-14.
Works in Progress:
The Grasp That Reaches Beyond the Grave: the Ancestral Call in Black Women’s Fiction (current book project—drafting chapters).