Paul Edwards

Afro-modernism; queer studies; American literature and culture; performance studies; the Black Atlantic

Paul J. Edwards is an Assistant Professor of English and Dramatic Literature and a book reviews editor for The Black Scholar. His research and teaching span across the fields of African American studies with a focus on global Afro-modernism and gender and sexuality studies. He received his PhD in American Studies from Boston University and previously held a postdoctoral fellowship in African American literature at Rutgers University under Dr. Cheryl A. Wall.

His current book project, The Black Wave: The New Negro Renaissance in Interwar Germany, reveals the effects of the New Negro/Harlem Renaissance in Germany from 1925 to 1938. Drawing together conversations in performance studies, modernist studies, and Black studies, the book reflects extensive archival research in Germany, Austria, and the United States. At the heart of this project is the insight that the Black arts renaissance extended beyond the known centers of the Black Atlantic and had a profound effect on the cultures of Weimar and Nazi Germany. His research appears in Modern Drama, German Studies Review, Theatre Survey, TDR/The Drama Review, Modernism/modernity, and The Black Scholar.