Ph.D. 2004 (American Studies), Yale; B.A. 1994 (Program in American Culture), Michigan
Jay Garcia
Associate Professor of Comparative Literature
20th and 21st century U.S. literature; modern literature and literary theory, African American literary history, Black Atlantic theory, intellectual history; history and practice of American Studies; cultural criticism
Jay Garcia received his Ph.D. in American Studies from Yale University in 2004. His research focuses on intellectual and literary histories of African American writing. He is the author of the forthcoming Psychology Comes to Harlem: Rethinking the Race Question in Mid-Twentieth Century America, which examines the work of Richard Wright, Lillian Smith, James Baldwin and other mid-twentieth century literary artists and critics. He teaches courses on transnationalism in African American letters, comparative approaches to the study of American literature, and modern critical practices, including the emergence of American Studies and cultural studies.
Psychology Comes to Harlem: Rethinking the Race Question in Twentieth Century America (Johns Hopkins, 2012).
Retrieving the Human: Reading Paul Gilroy (SUNY, 2014).
“Richard Wright and the Americanism of Lawd Today!,” Journal of American Studies 48.
“An Attitude that Could Act Upon Modernity: Versions of Jean Toomer,” History of the Present: A Journal of Critical History 4.