Houston Baker
| Houston A. Baker Jr. | |
|---|---|
| Born | Houston Alfred Baker Jr. March 22, 1943 Louisville, Kentucky, United States |
| Occupation | Writer, academic |
| Nationality | American |
| Subject |
English African American studies |
Houston Alfred Baker Jr. (born March 22, 1943) is an American scholar specializing in African-American literature and currently serving as a professor at Vanderbilt University in the English department.
Baker served as president of the Modern Language Association, editor of the journal American Literature, and has authored several books, including The Journey Back: Issues in Black Literature and Criticism, Modernism and the Harlem Renaissance, Blues, Ideology, and Afro-American Literature, and Workings of the Spirit: The Poetics of Afro-American Women's Writing. Baker was included in the 2006 textbook Fifty Key Literary Theorists, by Richard J. Lane.
Baker was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, a city he later described as "racist" and "stultifying". The racism and violence he claims to have experienced as a youth would later prompt him to conclude "I had been discriminated against and called 'Nigger' enough to think that what America needed was a good Black Revolution." He recently revised such a summary judgment in his book combining memoir and critique titled I Don't Hate the South (Oxford University Press, 2007).
Baker's academic career initially progressed along traditional lines. He earned a B.A. in English literature from Howard University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Victorian literature from the UCLA. He began teaching at Yale University and intended to write a biography of Oscar Wilde. In 1970 he joined the University of Virginia's Center for Advanced Studies, and from 1974-77 he directed the University of Pennsylvania's Afro-American Studies Program.
From 1977-99, Baker was a Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania. Starting in 1982, he was the Albert M. Greenfield Professor of Human Relations, and in 1987 he also founded the university's Center for the Study of Black Literature and Culture, serving as the Center's director until 1999.
...
Wikipedia