Koritha Mitchell, PhD is an award-winning author, literary historian, cultural critic, and professional development expert. Her research focuses on African America literature as well as violence in United States history and contemporary culture. She examines how texts, both written and performed, help targeted families and communities survive and thrive.
Her first book, Living with Lynching, won awards from the American Theatre and Drama Society and from the Society for the Study of American Women Writers. Her second monograph, From Slave Cabins to the White House: Homemade Citizenship in African American Culture, appeared in August 2020 and was named a Best Book of 2020 by Ms. Magazine and Black Perspectives. She has edited Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861), the first book-length autobiography by a formerly enslaved African American woman, as well as Frances E.W. Harper’s 1892 novel Iola Leroy. Her scholarly articles include “James Baldwin, Performance Theorist, Sings the Blues for Mister Charlie,” published by American Quarterly, and “Love in Action,” which appeared in Callaloo and identifies similarities between lynching and violence against LGBTQ communities.
Follow Mitchell on Twitter @ProfKori.
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Koritha Mitchell
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I Was Determined to Remember: Harriet Jacobs and the Corporeality of Slavery’s Legacies
Los Angeles Review of Books [May 30, 2023] -
Harriet Jacobs was a pioneer in exposing racial and sexual violence
The Washington Post [March 7, 2023] -
How Reading Queer Authors Improved My Relationships
Avidly [December 15, 2021] -
I'm a Black Woman Who's Met All the Standards for Promotion. I'm Not Waiting to Reward Myself
TIME [April 27, 2021] -
The Delicate Balancing Act of Black Women’s Memoir.
Electric Literature [August 12, 2020] -
Looking Past Protest
Women's History Network-UK [August 7, 2020] -
Black Feminists Are Mobilizing for Trans Women
Bitch [June 23, 2020] -
Never Supported a Trans Youth Organization? Now is the Time
Openly News [June 16, 2020] -
The secret to Michelle Obama’s ‘most admired’ status
CNN [January 1, 2019] -
No, Cindy Hyde-Smith, hanging is no joke
CNN [November 13, 2018] -
In America, White Women Can Get Away With Almost Anything
The Huffington Post [March 16, 2018] -
What I learned about police brutality videos from studying images of lynchings
Vox [July 28, 2016] -
Interviewed about Frances E. W. Harper and lola Leroy
The Source. WURD [March 2, 2018] -
Editing Frances E. W. Harper’s Iola Leroy
Broadview Press Blog [February 21, 2018] -
I'm A Professor. My Colleagues Who Let Their Students Dictate What They Teach are Cowards
Vox [June 10, 2015] -
Deaths of Unarmed Black Men Revive 'Anti-Lynching Plays"
Morning Edition [April 17, 2015] -
Video: Book Discussion on Living with Lynching
C-Span [March 14, 2014] -
The Academic Feminist: Koritha Mitchell on lynching, LGBT violence, and love
Feministing [November 7, 2013] -
Spotlight on Michelle Obama
KCRW [January 21, 2013] -
Making Strides
OSU College of Arts and Sciences [Autumn 2012] -
One-hour special for Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2012
Michael Eric Dyson radio show [January 17, 2012] -
Interview on Writers Talk
Ohio Channel (PBS Station) [October 15, 2011] -
The American Way: Mediocrity, When White, Looks Like Merit
Kori's Commentary (her personal blog) [July 29, 2011]
The new lynching memorial and museum in Montgomery, Alabama, model a powerfully inclusive approach to history.
Harper was an outspoken activist for decades on abolition, temperance, public education, voting rights, and women’s equality. Why isn't she a household name?