office: 324 Tate phone: 573-882-3025 email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. office hours: TR 9:00-10:30 Research and teaching areas: African American and African literature

Christopher N. Okonkwo teaches courses in African Diaspora Studies, with a specialty in 20th-century African American literature and culture, African literature in English, and post-colonial theory. In addition to the publications cited below, his works have also appeared in other journals, including Research in African Literatures and MELUS.

Education

PhD 2001, Florida State University

Selected Publications

• A Spirit of Dialogue: Incarnations of Ợgbañje, the Born-to-Die, in African American Literature. University of Tennessee Press, 2008
• "'Coming to America': Ike Oguine's A Squatter's Tale and the Nigerian/African Immigrant's Narrative." Forthcoming (2008) in a special issue of African Literature Today (27) on "New Novels in Africa."
• "'It Was Like Meeting an Old Friend': An Interview with John Edgar Wideman." Callaloo: A Journal of African Diaspora Arts and Letters 29.2 (2006). 347-360
• "Of Caul and Response: Baby of the Family, Ansa's Neglected Metafiction of the Veil of Blackness." CLA Journal XLIX. 2 (December 2005). 144-167
• "A Critical Divination: Reading Sula as Ogbanje-Abiku." African American Review 38.4 (Winter 2004). 651-668

Courses Taught

• English 3100: Introduction to Literary Study
• English 3410: African American Literature, 1900-Present
• English 3410: African American Literature, 1900-Present
• English 4160/7160: Major Authors (Chinua Achebe)
• English 4170/7170: Comparative Approaches to Literature
• English 4400/7400: Studies in Anglophone Africana Literature
• English 4400: Topics or Genres in Anglophone Africana Literature
• English 4970: Capstone Experience
• English 8320: The Neo-Slave Narrative: Its Contexts, Politics, Aesthetics
• English 8400: Seminar in Anglophone Africana Literature