Miriam Thaggert

African American Literature and Culture, Modernism, Visual Culture

Miriam Thaggert is an Assistant Professor of English and African American Studies. Her research focuses on nineteenth-, twentieth-, and twenty-first century African American literature, American modernism, and American visual culture. Her first book, Images of Black Modernism (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, forthcoming in 2010) examines Harlem Renaissance aesthetic theories, fiction, and photography and the formation of early-twentieth-century African American modernism. She is currently working on a second book project on nineteenth-century forms of technology and the perception and categorization of national and racial identities. Her research interests also include critical race theory, film and popular culture, and photography. She was a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow and received her Ph.D. in English from the University of California, Berkeley.

Selected Publications

Book: Images of Black Modernism (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, forthcoming 2010)

“Racial Etiquette: Nella Larsen’s Passing and the Rhinelander Case.” Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism 5.2 (Spring 2005): 1-29.

Reprinted: The Norton Critical Edition of Nella Larsen’s Passing. Edited by Carla Kaplan. New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 2007. 507-532.

“Divided Images: Black Female Spectatorship and John Stahl’s Imitation of Life.” African American Review 32.3 (1998): 481-491.

“Reliving Memories: Evaluating History in Anita Desai’s Clear Light of Day.” World Literature Written in English 35.2 (1996): 90-102.