The Author: Phillip M. Richards is Associate Professor in the Department of English at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York. He received a Ph.D. in English and American literature from the University of Chicago. His scholarship, literary criticism, and journalism have been published in a number of professional journals and magazines.

«The essays gathered here offer an insightful and unsparing analysis of the shortcomings and possibilities of contemporary African American literary and cultural criticism. Richards wields his broad and deep understanding of the American and African American literary history with admirable dexterity as he assesses the critical voices that have shaped African American literary and cultural study over the last two decades. Rarely does a critic explore the links between literary criticism and social class with the care and rigor that Richards displays here. Richards’s readings come from a distinct point of view but are never predictable and pretentious. One learns from Richards even on those occasions when one disagrees with him.» (Kenneth Warren, Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor, The University of Chicago)