Harry Stecopoulos
Professor Stecopoulos teaches courses on modern U.S. literature, African American literature, transnational American Studies, the energy humanities, and creative writing.
His publications include Telling America’s Story to the World: Literature, Internationalism, Cultural Diplomacy (Oxford, 2022), Reconstructing the World: Southern Fictions and US Imperialisms, 1898-1976 (Cornell, 2008), and the edited collection A History of the Literature of the U.S. South (Cambridge, 2021). He is currently working on two book projects: “A Keen Sense of Power: Richard Wright, Energy, and the Violence of Extraction” and “Entangled Words: Diplomacy and the Making of American Literature.”
Trained as an African Americanist at the University of Virginia, Professor Stecopoulos has published articles and book chapters on Ralph Ellison, Stuart Hall, Langston Hughes, James Weldon Johnson, Alice Walker, and Richard Wright. He also has offered courses on the Black Atlantic, James Baldwin and Toni Morrison, and the U.S. novel of empire.
Professor Stecopoulos’ interest in literatures of color extends to his editorial service. During his tenure as editor of The Iowa Review (2013-2019), the magazine regularly featured work by C.S. Giscombe, Charles Johnson, Douglas Kearney, Major Jackson, Nathaniel Mackey, Reginald McKnight, Shane McCrae, Kiki Petrosino, Justin Philip Reed, Maurice Carlos Ruffin, Safiya Sinclair, Wendy Walters, Marcus Wicker, and other eminent Black authors.
Research Interests:
American Literature
