Charles Toombs, Ph.D.

Member of the department since 1991.  Areas of specialization and research interests include: Africana literature (African American, African, and Caribbean), American literature, Black Queer Studies, Class and Urban Studies, Interdisciplinary Studies,  Neglected and Silenced Voices in Africana Studies, and Expressive Culture.

Have taught a wide range of courses in the department, and have chaired or co-chaired department Curriculum committee since 1991.  Service to the department and the university include membership on a variety of committees in the College of Arts and Letters and university-wide, former member of university senate, including its Executive committee.  Am currently the department’s Academic Advisor.

Published works in refereed and scholarly journals and books and non-refereed publications include essays and articles on: James Baldwin, Samuel R. Delaney, Jessie Fauset, Rudolph Fisher, Josiah Henson, Nella Larsen, John Lewis, Terry McMillan, Gloria Naylor, Eugene Perkins, Kalamu ya Salaam, Joyce Carol Thomas, Wallace Thurman, Alice Walker, and Tom Weatherly. 

Have presented papers, chaired panels, and served on panels at professional meetings and conferences.  In April 2006, presented lectures and workshops on African American literature and Africana Studies at Gorlovka State Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages, Gorlovka, Ukraine.  Have been a faculty consultant to the Educational Testing Service since 1991, moving up the ranks to become Assistant Question Leader of the AP Exam in English Literature, and served as member of its Sample Selection Committee in Princeton, NJ in May, 2007. Served as Advisory Editor for the College Board’s Special Focus Journal on Teaching Advanced Placement in English Literature, 2008.

Works in Progress include: The Harlem Renaissance and American Modernism (co-authored with Dr. Svitlana Pukhnata) to published in late 2008 by Gorlovka University Press, Ukraine, a book; The Early Fiction of Alice Walker, a book; In Your Space and Staying: A Black Gay Man Aesthetic, a book; and an anthology of Africana literature (co-edited with Dr. Puhkanata).  In addition, an essay on Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and an essay “‘I Love My Pretty Boy, White Boys’: Self-Hatred Among Some Black Gay Men” will be submitted to journals during summer 2008.