DONALD M. SHAFFER JR., PH.D 102 John Wesley Rd. Starkville, MS

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1 DONALD M. SHAFFER JR., PH.D 102 John Wesley Rd. Starkville, MS Education Ph.D. English, University of Chicago, 2005 M.A. English, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1997 B.A. English, magna cum laude, Jackson State University 1995 Work Experience Mississippi State University, Interim Director of African American Studies (2016) Mississippi State University, Associate Professor of English and African American Studies (2008-Present) Mississippi State University, Interim Director of African American Studies (2009) Dominican University, Instructor, ( ) Dominican University, Director of the Writing Center. ( ) University of Chicago, Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program, Graduate Instructor. ( ) University of Chicago, Teaching Assistant. ( ) Honors & Awards Ochillo Award: best published article in the 2012 issues of The Griot: The Journal of African American Studies NIH Grant 2007 Dominican University Faculty Development Grant 2006 Mellon Dissertation Fellow 2003 Travel Grant from the University of Chicago English dept., University of Chicago Trustees Fellowship 1997 Community for Institutional Corporation Fellowship 1997 Graduate Fellowship (University of Illinois, Chicago) CIC Undergraduate Research Grant, Jackson State University 1994 Jackson State University full tuition scholarship Kappa Alpha Psi scholarship 1992 Scholarship Published Articles and Book Chapters Eds. Donald M. Shaffer and Kameelah Martin. Black Transnationalism and the Discourse(s) of Cultural Hybridity. [Special Issue] South Atlantic Review. Fall Donald M. Shaffer. The Seeds of Devilment : Figuring the South in Richard Wright s Black Boy. In Mississippi s Cultural Heritage: Literature. Ed. Lorie Watkins Fulton. University Press of Mississippi. Spring 2017.

2 Donald M. Shaffer. Charles W. Chesnutt, Whiteness and the Problem of Citizenship. In The Construction of Whiteness: An Interdisciplinary Analysis of Race Formation and the Meaning of a White Identity. Eds. Donald M. Shaffer, Stephen Middleton, David R. Roediger. University Press of Mississippi, Donald M. Shaffer. African American Folklore as Racial Project in Charles W. Chesnutt s The Conjure Woman. The Western Journal of Black Studies, Spring Donald M. Shaffer. When the Sun Goes Down: The Ghetto Pastoral Mode in Jean Toomer s Cane. The Southern Literary Journal. Volume XLV, Number 1, Fall Donald M. Shaffer. Harlem is No Where: Blues Spaces in Ralph Ellison s Invisible Man. The Griot. Volume 31:2, Fall [Winner of the 2013 Ochillo Award for best article published in The Griot] Pearson Liddell, Donald M. Shaffer and Gloria Liddell, Is Obama Black? The Pseudo-Legal Definition of the Black Race: A Proposal for Regulatory Clarification Generated from a Historical Socio- Political Perspective. The Scholar: St. Mary s Law Review on Minority Issues. Volume 12, Number 2, Winter 2010, pages Donald M. Shaffer and Fabio Rojas. What Can We Learn from the Black Studies Experience, Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture and Society. Volume 11, Issue 4 October 2009, pages Book Eds. Donald M. Shaffer, Stephen Middleton, David R. Roediger. Charles W. Chesnutt, Whiteness and the Problem of Citizenship. In The Construction of Whiteness: An Interdisciplinary Analysis of Race Formation and the Meaning of a White Identity. University Press of Mississippi, Scholarship in Progress Title: Though There Be Giants in the Land: Ghetto Pastoral Stories of Black Migration. (I am completing revisions for my manuscript submission to University Press of Mississippi who has also published my edited volume). Book Abstract The African American Great migration novel emerged as popular mode of fiction in the decade of the 1920s. Not surprisingly, the decade that saw both the Harlem Renaissance as well as the thunderous onset of the roaring Jazz Age also provided the backdrop for black migrant stories of personal triumph and transformation set in the symbolically potent urban landscape of America s iconic cityscapes. However, while these novels represented the powerful symbol of the northern city as a proverbial Promised Land, they also reflected the urban pastoral conflict that was at the very center of the black migrant experience. Indeed, these novels marshaled a variant of the urban pastoral mode that historian Michael Denning has termed the ghetto pastoral. In my book, I marshal Denning s concept of the ghetto pastoral to examine the ideological tension between rural and urban modes of experience in these novels. Specifically, I argue that the ghetto pastoral mode as a variant of urban pastoralism functions in the black migration novel as a dialectical trope that (re)conceptualizes concepts of race and cultural identity. This book will thus examine an essential historical/critical linkage between the racial uplift novels of the late nineteenth-century and the black modernist novels of the mid-twentieth-century. Indeed, my book examines the most

3 important figure of African American modernity; namely, the black migrant standing at the proverbial gates of the northern city standing as it were betwixt and between southern folk culture and the transformative cultural spaces of the northern city. Future Scholarship I am conducting research for what will be my third book (second monograph) on the novels of Charles W. Chesnutt. I have already published an article that presents the argument I will make in the book regarding the ideological persistence of a systematic racial project in Chesnutt s fiction. I hope to work on this project during my Spring 2018 sabbatical and look to complete this project within the next two years. Select Conference Presentations Donald M. Shaffer, The Island is Mine by Sycorax My Mother: Black Transnationalism and Cultural Hybridity. College English Association Conference. March 2017 Donald M. Shaffer, Translating to Transgress: Langston Hughes and the Poetics of Transnationalism. CMLL Symposium on Language, Literatures and Culture: Displacement in Language, Literature and Culture. October Donald M. Shaffer, [Session Chair] Freedom Summer Through Mississippi Eyes. Remembering Freedom Summer: Building a Better Future. October Donald M. Shaffer, The Term Negro: Racial Constructivism in the Essays and Correspondence of Charles W. Chesnutt. South Atlantic Modern Language Association Conference (November 2013). Donald M. Shaffer, Charles W. Chesnutt, Whiteness, and the Problem of Citizenship. South Atlantic Modern Language Association Conference (November 2012). Donald M. Shaffer, Committing Discipline Suicide: The Afrocentric ideal and Black Literary Criticism. Midwestern Modern Language Association Conference (November 2011). Donald M. Shaffer, Paul Laurence Dunbar and the Dialectic of Authenticity in Sport of the Gods. College English Association Conference (March 2011) Donald M. Shaffer, The Ghetto Pastoral Mode in Jean Toomer s Cane. College English Association Conference (March 2010). Donald M. Shaffer, A Gentleman in Ebony: The Ideology of Racial Uplift in Charles W. Chesnutt s The Marrow of Tradition. Southern Conference on African American Studies (March 2009). Research Interests African American Studies. Critical Race Theory. 20 th century American protest novel, Southern Literature Marxist literary and cultural theory The African American Great Migration (as a social and cultural movement) The life and work of novelist Charles W. Chesnutt

4 Teaching and Service (at Mississippi State University) Courses Taught AAS 1063: Introduction to African American Studies AAS 2363: Introduction to African American Literature AAS 4093: The African Diaspora AAS 4/6990: Race in American Popular Culture EN 1103: Honors Composition I EN 1113: Honors Composition II EN 1173: Accelerated Composition EN 2253: American Literature after 1865 EN 3533: Select Authors- Toni Morrison EN 4/6990: Special Topics- Richard Wright EN 4/6990: Special Topics- Black and White Strangers (Race and Realism in the American Novel) EN/AAS 4990: The End of African American Literature? EN 4/6333: Literature of the South EN 8573: Locations in Harlem: The African American Novel in the Harlem Renaissance. EN 8573: Paul Laurence Dunbar and the Dialectic of Authenticity. Courses/Programs Developed in English and African American Studies AAS 2363: Introduction to African American Literature. AAS 4093: The African Diaspora. EN/AAS 4343: Studies in African American Literature Current AAS Minor (modified requirements for the minor) Courses added to the general education requirements for the University: 1. AAS 1063 Introduction to African American Studies; 2. EN/AAS 2363 Introduction to African American Literature (pending UCCC approval) Service Positions Interim Director of African American Studies (Current) President of the Faculty Senate for the College of Arts and Sciences (Current) Chair of African American Studies Curriculum Committee (Current) Athletic Council (Current) Honors College Faculty (Current) Interim Director of African American Studies (2009). Academic Honors Council. English Dept. Composition Committee. President s Commission on Minority Affairs Select Events Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Essay Writing Contest (2011 to Present); coordinator/ Judge/ student mentor. AAS Whiteness Symposium (2013); panel respondent, committee planner.

5 AAS Scholar in Residence: Houston Baker (2011); committee planner. Maroon Edition: Eudora Welty (2011); coordinated AAS panel on Welty s life and career. AAS Speakers Series Presents Poet Sonia Sanchez (2010); coordinator. AAS Scholar in Residence: Molefi Kete Asante (2009); conducted panel with resident scholar. References Gerald Graff, Department of English and Department of Education, University of Illinois at Chicago Kenneth Warren, Department of English, University of Chicago Houston Baker, Department of English, Vanderbilt University Michael Williams, Director of African American Studies, University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) Matthew Hughey, Department of Sociology, University of Connecticut

Afro-American literature in the wake of the Civil Rights movement

Afro-American literature in the wake of the Civil Rights movement The bland of American democracy displayed a rotten truth: the plight of the American Negro (Hugh Brogan, The Penguin History of United