Justin Smith ’17, PhD, assistant professor of English and Black Studies at Randolph-Macon College, is the author of “Subjective Limits of Imagination: Race, Gender, and Sex in the Archives,” an essay included in the expanded and revised 10-year anniversary edition of Asexualities: Feminist and Queer Perspectives (Routledge 2024).
In May, he presented a paper entitled “Monsters and Gods: Naturalist Racial Constructions from Stephen Crane to Richard Wright,” as part of a panel sponsored by the African American Literature and Culture Society at the annual meeting of the American Literature Association in Chicago.
At Canisius, Smith majored in English and creative writing, contributed articles to The Griffin, served as an editor for Quadrangle, and wrote a creative all-college honors thesis. Mentored by Dr. Jennifer Desiderio, he presented an Ignatian Scholarship paper analyzing Clotel, William Wells Brown’s 1853 novel about enslaved daughters of Thomas Jefferson. After graduating summa cum laude, Smith earned first an MA then a PhD at Penn State.
At Randolph-Macon, he’s taught Introduction to African American Literature, Hip Hop and American Literature and African American Modernism.
You can read his full academic profile here:
https://www.rmc.edu/profile/justin-smith/
Submitted by: Mick Cochrane, Professor, English
