Education
  • PhD, American Studies and African American Studies, Yale University, 2003
  • MA, American Studies and African American Studies, Yale University, 1999
  • BA, English, Hampton University, 1996
Academic Appointments
  • Professor, University of South Carolina, English and African-American Studies, since 2018
  • Interim Associate Dean for Interdisciplinary Studies and College Initiatives, University of South Carolina, 2021-2022
  • Director, African American Studies Program, University of South Carolina, 2018-2022
  • Associate Professor, University of South Carolina, English and African American Studies, 2009-2018
  • Visiting Professor, University Studies Abroad Consortium in Florianópolis, Brazil, Summer 2017.
  • Assistant Professor, University of South Carolina, English, 2003-2009
  • Instructor, Yale University, African American Studies, 2001
  • Teaching Assistant, Yale University, English and History, 1998-1999

Other University Affiliations
  • Affiliate USC Faculty, Media Studies
  • Affiliate USC Faculty, Southern Studies
Publications
Books
  • EC Comics: Race, Shock, and Social Protest. Rutgers University Press, 2019.
  • Comics and the U.S. South. Eds. Qiana Whitted and Brannon Costello. University Press of Mississippi, 2012.
  • “A God of Justice?” The Problem of Evil in Twentieth-Century Black Literature. University of Virginia Press, 2009. 
Selected Articles
  • Introduction to Black Panther (Penguin Classics Marvel Collection), Don McGregor, Rich Buckler, Billy Graham, et. al., Penguin Classics, 2022
  • “Blues Fallin’ Down Like Hail: Reading ‘The Sky is Gray’ as a Blues Narrative,” in MLA Series: Approaches to Teaching Gaines’ The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman and Other Works. Ed. John Lowe and Herman Beavers, 2019.
  • “Comics and Emmett Till,” Picturing Childhood: Youth in Transnational Comics. University of Texas Press, 2017.
  • "The Blues Tragicomic: Constructing the Black Folk Subject in McCulloch and Hendrix's Stagger Lee." The Blacker the Ink: Constructions of Black Identity in Comics and Sequential Art. Rutgers University Press, 2015.
  • "Black Culture, Speculative Fiction, and the Past as Text in Jeremy Love's Bayou." Class, Please Open Your Comics: Essays on Teaching with Graphic Narratives. McFarland, 2015: 195-216.
  • “'And the Negro thinks in hieroglyphics': Comics, Visual Metonymy, and the Spectacle of Blackness." Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, Vol. 5. No. 1 (2014): 79-100.
  • “Of Slaves and Other Swamp Things: Black Southern History as Comic Book Horror,” Comics and the U.S. South. Eds. Qiana Whitted and Brannon Costello. University Press of Mississippi, 2012.
  • “Using My Grandmother’s Life as a Model: Richard Wright and the Gendered Politics of Religious Representation,” Southern Literary Journal, 36.2 (2004): 13-30. Reprinted in Harold Bloom, ed., Richard Wright: Bloom's Modern Critical Views, 2nd Edition. New York, Infobase Publishing, 2009.
  • “In My Flesh Shall I See God: Ritual Violence, Racial Redemption, and Countee Cullen’s ‘The Black Christ’,” African American Review, 38.3 (2004): 379-393.
Review Essays
Awards and Honors
  • UofSC Russell Research Award in Humanities and Social Sciences, 2022
  • Will Eisner Industry Award for Best Academic/Scholarly Work, 2020
  • Finalist, Farrar Award in Media & Civil Rights History, 2019
  • Department of English Research Professorship, 2016
  • USC Provost Humanities Grant, 2012-2014
  • English Department Teaching Award, 2012
  • USC College of Arts and Sciences Summer Research Fellowship, 2011
  • USC Institute for African American Studies Research Grant, 2010-2011
  • USC NAACP Andrew Billingsley Faculty Award, 2004
  • Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship, 2002-2003
  • Yale University Dissertation Fellowship, 2000-2001
  • Yale African American Studies Research Grant, 1998
  • Yale University Graduate School Fellowship, 1996-1999
  • Hurston/Wright Foundation Creative Writing Workshop, 2000
  • Hampton University President's Award, 1996
  • English Departmental Award, 1996.