Faculty

Michelle Wright

Associate Professor of English

Ph.D. University of Michigan, 1997
B.A. Oberlin College, 1992

Michelle Maria Wright was born in Rome, Italy, and raised in Italy, Morocco, the Netherlands and Belgium. She received her B.A. in Comparative Literature from Oberlin College in 1992, and her Ph.D. in the same from the University of Michigan in 1997. From 1997-2001 she was an assistant professor of literary and cultural studies and the McCandless junior faculty chair in English at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. In 2000-2001 she also served as the Thomas E. Critchett Visting Assistant professor in English here at Macalester College, and in the following year joined the faculty as a permament member.

Areas of Study

Trained in 19th century French, German, African-American and British literature, Michelle M. Wright teaches a range of courses in English department, from contemporary literary and cultural studies to queer studies, feminist literature, European and American literature, to postcolonial and African Diasporic literatrure and theory. She also teaches two specialty courses, one in murder and literature, the other in drug literature. In her research, Michelle specializes in the question of identity in African American, Black British, Black French and Afro-German literature, culture and theory.

Spring 2005 Courses

• Senior Seminar: Diaspora/Nationalism

Past Macalester Courses

• American Voices: African-American Literature and Culture from Europe
• Literature and Sexuality
• Seminar in American Authors
• Anglophone Literature

Awards

Michelle is the recipient of Mellon, Horace H Rackham, and Social Science and Research Council Fellowships. She has received research grants from the Center for African American Urban Studies and the Economy, and Falk. She is a member of the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi.

Publications

Michelle has published numerous articles for a range of anthologies and journals, including the award-winning volume James Baldwin Now and Nka: Journal of African Art. She is co-editor of Reading the Black German Experience (Callaloo, 2003) and Domain Errors: Cyberfeminist Practices (Autonomedia Press, 2003). Her book, Becoming Black: Creating Identity in the African Diaspora (February 2004), is from Duke University Press.

Links

• Duke University Press Web Site