Curricula Vitae in African-American Studies

Name	Personal Focus	Summary
Dr. Kendall Dwayne Deas Assistant Professor
Melanie Holmes Assistant Professor
Dr. Deena A Isom Associate Professor	Criminological Theory, Justice and Violence, Intersectionality of Race and Gender	Deena Isom is an Associate Professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, College of Arts and Sciences.
April Langley Associate Professor		April Langley specializes in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century African American and American literature and theory. Her courses include such topics as early black narrative forms (conversion, captivity, slave narration, travel, and spiritual autobiography), eighteenth-century Afro-British American poetics, and nineteenth-century black women writers.
Nancy D Tolson Instructor		A proud product of the Detroit Public Schools, Dr. Nancy D. Tolson received her Masters and PhD from the University of Iowa, researching the history and development of Black children’s literature. She has been a Ford Fellow, a NEH facilitator, as well as a Fulbright scholar/lecturer at the University of Cape Coast (Ghana) while conducting research on West African folklore. For three years, Tolson was an Illinois Humanities’ “Road Scholar” storytelling throughout the state.