ROBERT PATTERSON, Assistant Professor, Ph.D., Emory University (2007), specializes in African American literary and cultural studies, and his primary research analyzes the ways in which the biblical notion of Chosenness has been a defining yet under-theorized aspect of African American literary and cultural studies. He currently is working on his first book project, tentatively titled Are Many Called, But Few Chosen? Contemporary African American Literature and a New Direction for Political Enfranchisement, which examines African American literature's preoccupation with African Americans' quests for civil rights, and the attendant notion of God-sent (Chosen) figures who lead civil rights movements. Investigating this overlap between literature, theology, and politics, Are Many Called re-thinks about the types of rights that are-and should be-included in the term "civil rights," foregrounds the limitations of the metaphor of Chosenness as a strategy to enfranchise all African Americans, and provides models of leadership that extend beyond the parameters of leadership that notion of Chosenness circumscribes. In addition to literary studies, Dr. Patterson's research and teaching interests include the fields of African American, American, Cultural, and Gender Studies, as well as Liberation and Womanist Theologies.

REPRESENTATIVE PUBLICATIONS

• "Movements, Clashes, and Definitional Shifts: African American Feminist Political Theory and Literary Criticism, 1970 until 2000." The Cambridge Companion to African American Women's Writing. Ed. Angelyn Mitchell and Danille Taylor. Forthcoming, December 2007, Cambridge University Press.
• "Disrupting Racial Discourse: Teaching 'Recitatif.'" The Fiction of Toni Morrison: Teaching and Writing on Race, Culture, and Identity. Ed. Jami Carlacio., August 2007, NCTE.

AWARDS AND HONORS

• Ford Pre-doctoral Fellowship, Awarded in 2002

FALL 2007 CLASSES

• AML 2600:06-Honors Introduction to African American Literature
• AML 4604:01- Movements, Clashes, and Definitional Shifts: 20th Century African American Literature and Literary Criticism

SPRING 2008 CLASSES

• ENG 3014: Critical Issues in Literary Studies: An Introduction to Contemporary Literary and Cultural Theory
• AML 5608: What Happens to Chosenness, Chosen Figures, and Civil Rights When They Meet the African American Literary Imagination? (Grad)