Cheryl A. Wall (October 29, 1948 – April 4, 2020) was a literary critic and professor of

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and was ...

. One of the first black women to head an English department at a major research university, she worked for diversity in the literary canon as well as in the classroom.Associated Press (April 22, 2020)
"Literary scholar Cheryl A. Wall dies at age 71"
''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

''. She specialized in black women's writing, particularly the Harlem Renaissance and Zora Neale Hurston.Roberts, Sam (April 22, 2020)
"Cheryl A. Wall, 71, Dies; Champion of Black Literary Women"
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

''. She edited several volumes of Hurston's writings for the Library of America. She was also a section editor for '' The Norton Anthology of African American Literature'' and was on the editorial boards of '' American Literature'', ''

African American Review ''African American Review'' (''AAR'') is a scholarly aggregation of essays on African-American literature, theatre, film, the visual arts, and culture; interviews; poetry; fiction; and book reviews. The journal has featured writers and cultural c ...

'' and '' Signs''. An award-winning researcher and teacher, she was named the Board of Governors Zora Neale Hurston Professor in 2007. Wall had a lifelong commitment to African-American arts and culture and was the founding board chair of the Crossroads Theater Company, the first Black Theater in

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

, founded by two Rutgers graduates, Ricardo Khan and Lee Richardson in 1978.

Biography

Cheryl Ann Wall was born in

Manhattan, New York Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

, and was raised in Jamaica, Queens. Her father Rev. Monroe Wall was a pastor of Mount Calvary Baptist Church in Harlem, and her mother, Rennie Ray (''née'' Strayhorn) Wall, was an English teacher in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

public schools. Cheryl attended Rhodes Preparatory School in Manhattan, and studied piano under Margaret Bonds. She went on to earn a

B.A. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...

degree in English from

Howard University Howard University (Howard) is a Private university, private, University charter#Federal, federally chartered historically black research university in Washington, D.C. It is Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, classifie ...

and her

Ph.D A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

on a

Ford Foundation The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a US$25,000 gift from Edsel Ford. By 1947, after the death ...

scholarship. Wall began her association with

teaching there in 1972, and she would become a founder of the Rutgers English Diversity Institute, to encourage greater diversity among graduate students, as a result of which all English majors were required to complete a course in African-American literature. Wall died of complications from an asthma attack, at her home in

Highland Park, New Jersey Highland Park is a borough in Middlesex County, New Jersey, United States in the New York City metropolitan area. The borough is located on the northern banks of the Raritan River, in the Raritan Valley region. As of the 2020 United States Cens ...

, on April 4, 2020, aged 71. Wall is survived by her daughter, Camara Epps.

Selected publications

* ''Changing Our Own Words: Criticism, Theory and Writing by Black Women'' (ed., 1989) * ''Women of the Harlem Renaissance'' (1995) * ''"Sweat": Texts and Contexts'' (ed., 1997) * ''

Their Eyes Were Watching God ''Their Eyes Were Watching God'' is a 1937 novel by American writer Zora Neale Hurston. It is considered a classic of the Harlem Renaissance, and Hurston's best known work. The novel explores main character Janie Crawford's "ripening from a v ...

: A Casebook'' (ed., 2000) * ''Worrying the Line: Black Women Writers, Lineage and Literary Tradition'' (2005) * ''On Freedom and the Will to Adorn: The Art of the African American Essay'' (2019)

References

External links

Official web page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wall, Cheryl 1948 births 2020 deaths American academics of English literature American literary critics Women literary critics Rutgers University faculty Howard University alumni Harvard University alumni People from Jamaica, Queens American women critics