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All Trails Lead To Sterling: How Sterling Brown Fathered The Field Of Black Literary And Cultural Studies, 1936-1969, Amber E. Zu-Bolton

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Poet and professor Sterling A. Brown (1901-1989) played a significant role in the birth of black literary and cultural studies through his literary and academic careers. Brown helped to establish a new wave of black cultural and folklore studies during his time as the “Director of Negro Affairs” for the Federal Writers’ Project. As a professor at Howard University, Brown influenced black literary studies through his literary criticisms and seminars and his role as a mentor to literary figures of the next generations. Through letters to and from Sterling Brown and manuscripts, this thesis argues that Brown’s poetry, publications and …