Professor

620L Old Chemistry Building
513-556-3917
amy.elder@uc.edu

Professional Summary

My teaching and research specialty is African literatures and cultures and Ethnic American literatures and cultures, with an emphasis on African and American ethnic women. I began my study of African literature while on a Senior Fulbright Award at the University of Nairobi, Kenya, 1976-7 and introduced an African literature sequence into the English Department curriculum after my return to the University of Cincinnati. I also developed a sequence of undergraduate courses in Ethnic American literature, and was Director of the Ethnic American Studies Certificate Program. I have been President of WOCALA, the women's caucus of the African Literature Association and am presently Secretary to the Executive Council of the ALA. Previously, I was Treasurer of MELUS, the Society for the Study of the Ethnic Literature of the United States, and was one of the judges of the 2006 African Studies Association Women's Caucus African Women Writers Award given posthumously to Yvonne Vera.

Research Support

Taft Domestic Travel Grants , Funded 2007

Taft Summer Faculty Fellowships , Funded 2007

Taft Foreign Travel Grants , Funded 04-2006

Taft Domestic Travel Grants , Funded 2005

Taft Domestic Travel Grants , Funded 2004

Taft Domestic Travel Grants , Funded 2002

Taft Domestic Travel Grants, Funded 2001

Taft Domestic Travel Grants , Funded 2000

Taft Domestic Travel Grants , Funded 1998

Taft Faculty Fellowship , Funded 1988 to 1989.

Funded 07-1986

Taft Summer Faculty Fellowships , Funded 1984

Taft Summer Faculty Fellowships , Funded 1980

University Research Council Faculty Fellowships , Funded 1979

University Research Council Stipends, Funded 06-1978

Ohio Council for the Humanities Grant , Funded 04-1976

University Research Council Stipends , Funded 06-1974

Taft Summer Faculty Fellowships , Funded 1974

Taft Travel Research Grant , Funded 1973

University Research Council Faculty Fellowships , Funded 1972

Peer Reviewed Publications

(2000). Narrative Journeys: From Orature to Postmodernism in Soyinka's 'The Road' and Okri's 'The Famished Road'. Multiculturalism and Hybridity in African Literatures, 409, 416.

(10-1999). Dancing the Page: Oral Narrative Traditions in N. Scott Momaday's The Way to Rainy Mountain . Narrative, 7 (3), 272, 288.

(1998). Ama Ata Aidoo: The Development of a Woman's Voice. Emerging Perspectives on Ama Ata Aidoo, 157, 169.

(1997). Criticizing From the Borderlands. Colorizing Literary Theory, 26 (4), 5, 11.

(1992). Silence as Expression: Sally Morgan’s My Place. Kunapipi, XIV (1), 16, 24.

(1992). sassafrass, cypress and indigo: Ntozake Shange’s Neo-Slave (Blues)Narrative. African American Review, 26 (1), 99, 107.

(1991). The Paradoxical Characterization of Okonkwo. Approaches to Teaching THING FALL APART, 58, 64.

(1991). In Pursuit of the ‘Kenyan Dream’: Mwangi Ruheni’s The Future Leaders and Meja Mwangi’s Kill Me Quick . World Literature Written in English.

Books

(1978). THE HINDERED HAND: Cultural Implications of Early African-American Fiction. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press.

Arlene (Amy) Elder (Under Review). ORATURE, POSTMODERN NARRATIVE AND AFRICAN FICTION: BEN OKRI, B. KOJO LAING, AND YVONNE VERA. MSS. under review at James Cook Publishers, Oxford, UK in conjunction with Africa World Press, Rutgers, NJ:

Book Chapters

(1993). A History of Twentieth-Century African Literatures. Oyekan Owomoyela (Eds.), East African Literature. (pp. 49-84). Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press.

(1992). Reworlding: Essays on the Literature of the Literature of the Indian Diaspora. Emmanuel Nelson (Eds.), Indian Writing in East Africa and South Africa. (pp. 36pp). Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press.