Degrees Held

B.S., 1979,The U.S. Air Force Academy
M.A., 1985, Colorado State University
Ph.D., 1995, Rutgers University

Academic Summary

Verner D. Mitchell arrived at The University of Memphis in 1999 after a 20-year career in the US Air Force. He teaches courses in American literature and culture and has research interests in the Harlem Renaissance and black feminist criticism. He is currently writing a biography of Dorothy West for Rutgers University Press.

Courses Taught

2202 Literary Heritage
7330 African American Literature, 1850-1900
7468 Literature of the Harlem Renaissance
7469 African American Women Writers
8900 English Studies Colloquium

Recent activities

• Western Echoes of the Harlem Renaissance: The Life and Writings of Anita Scott Coleman. Norman: U of Oklahoma Press, 2008. With Dr. Cynthia Davis.
  http://www.oupress.com/bookdetail.asp?ISBN=978-0-8061-3975-3
• “A Family Answers the Call: Anita Scott Coleman, Literature, and War.” War, Literature & the Arts 20.1&2 (2008): 301-313.
• Where the Wild Grape Grows: Selected Writings by Dorothy West, 1930-1950. Amherst: U of Mass. P, 2005. With Dr. Cynthia Davis.
  http://www.umass.edu/umpress/fall_04/mitchell04.html
• This Waiting for Love: Helene Johnson, Poet of the Harlem Renaissance. Amherst: U of Massachusetts Press. 2000.
  http://www.umass.edu/umpress/fall_06/mitchellv.htm