Education: B.A., Vanderbilt; M.A., Georgia State; Ph.D., Columbia.

Research interests: Southern, African American, Asian American, Louisiana and ethnic literature and theory; humor.

Books: Jump at the Sun: Zora Neale Hurston's Cosmic Comedy, 1994; Conversations with Ernest Gaines, (ed.), 1995; The Future of Southern Letters, (co_ed.), 1996; Bridging Southern Culture, ed., (2005); Approaches to Teaching Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God and Other Works, ed.(forthcoming).

Essays: "Riffs from the Rez: Alexander Posey and the Origins of Native American Literary Comedy."The Legacy and Influence of Fus Fixico, forthcoming; "African American Humor." Comedy: A Geographic and Historical Guide" (2005); "Calypso Magnolia: The Caribbean Side of the South." South Central Review (2004); "Constructing a Cultural Theory for the South." Bridging Southern Cultures (2005); "Recreating a Public for the Plantation: Reconstruction Myths of the Bi-racial Southern Family." Bridging Southern Cultures (2005); "The Construction and Deconstruction of Masculinity in The Yearling. Mississippi Quarterly (2004); "Reconstruction Revisited: Plantation School Writers, Post-Colonial Theory, and Confederates in Brazil." Mississippi Quarterly (2004); "Fingering the Jagged Grain: Edward P. Jones and The Known World. The World and I (2004); "Fraternal Fury: Faulkner, World War I, and Myths of Masculinity." Faulkner and War (2004); "Richard Wright as Ethnographer: The Conundrums of Pagan Spain," New Reflections: Essays; Richard Wright's Travel Books, 2001; "From 'Flags in the Dust' to Banners of Defiance: Tales of a Symbol's Transformations," Callaloo, 2001; "ranscendence in the House of the Dead: The Gaze of A Lesson Before Dying," The World is Our Home, 2000; "Multicultural Literature in the United States: Advent and Process," U.S. Society & Values, 2000; "An Interview with James Wilcox," Mississippi Quarterly, 1999; "Newsprint Masks: The Comic Columns of Finley Peter Dunne, Alexander Posey, and Langston Hughes," Beyond the Binary, 1999; "'Seeing Beyond Seeing': Zora Neale Hurston's Religion(s)," Southern Quarterly, 1998; "Modifier la farce pour renverser les roles: la tradition de l'humour afro-americain." La femme noire americane: aspects d'une crise d'identite,1997; "Monkey Kings and Mojo: Postmodern Humor in Kingston, Reed, and Vizenor," MELUS, 1996; "Humor and Ethnicity in Ethnic Autobiography: Zora Neale Hurston and Jerre Mangione," Cultural Difference and the Literary Text, 1996; "'I Am Joaquin!' Space and Freedom in the Golden Republic: Yellow Bird's The Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta, the Celebrated California Bandit," Early Native American Writing, 1996; "From Mule Bones to Funny Bones: The Plays of Zora Neale Hurston," Southern Quarterly, 1995;"An Interview with Brenda Marie Osbey," The Southern Review, 1994; Wright Writing Reading: Narrative Strategies in Uncle Tom's Children," The Modern American Short Story, 1994; "Coyote's Jokebook: Humor in Native American Literature and Culture," Native American Handbook, 1994; "A Meeting in Malgudi: A Conversation With R. K. Narayan," R. K. Narayan, 1993; "Humor and Identity in Jerre Mangione's Storia," VIA, 1993; "Parables of Manhood: Ernest Gaines' Bayonne Tapestry," The World and I , 1993; "The Unvanquished: Faulkner's Nietzschean Skirmish with the Civil War," Mississippi Quarterly (1993); "Hurston, Humor, and the Harlem Renaissance," The Harlem Renaissance Re_examined, (1988);"Theories of Ethnic Humor: How to Enter, Laughing," American Quarterly (1986).

Awards and honors: LSU Distinguished Faculty Award, 1999; President, MELUS, 1997-2000; LEH Summer Institute Grants, 1997, 1992; Senior Fulbright Professor, University of Munich, 1995-96; ACLS Fellow, 1992-93; N.E.H. Travel to collections Grant, 1990; Ford Foundation Fellow, Center for the Study of Southern Culture, 1986-87; Mellon Fellow, Harvard, 1985-86; Fulbright Scholar, New Delhi, India, 1983.

Complete CV