Deborah E. McDowell (born 1951) is a scholar, author and member of the

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United S ...

faculty since 1987 where she serves as the Alice Griffin professor of Literary Studies. In 2008 professor McDowell was named director of the

Carter G. Woodson Carter Godwin Woodson (December 19, 1875April 3, 1950) was an American historian, author, journalist, and the founder of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH). He was one of the first scholars to study the h ...

Institute for African-American and African Studies, at the

.Bromley, Anne
"Deborah E. McDowell named Carter G. Goodson Institute Director at the University of Virginia."
UVA Today. April 23, 2008.

Early life

McDowell was born and raised in

Bessemer, Alabama Bessemer is a southwestern suburb of Birmingham in Jefferson County, Alabama, United States. The population was 26,019 at the 2020 census. It is within the Birmingham- Hoover, AL Metropolitan Statistical Area, of which Jefferson County is the ...

. She wrote about her childhood in her debut memoir ''Leaving Pipe Shop: Memories of Kin''.

Academic and writing career

McDowell received a B.A. from

Tuskegee University Tuskegee University (Tuskegee or TU), formerly known as the Tuskegee Institute, is a private, historically black land-grant university in Tuskegee, Alabama. It was founded on Independence Day in 1881 by the state legislature. The campus was d ...

, and M.A. and Ph.D. from

Purdue University Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and money ...

. She has been on the faculty of the University of Virginia since 1987. She founded the African-American Women Writers Series at

Beacon Press Beacon Press is an American left-wing non-profit book publisher. Founded in 1854 by the American Unitarian Association, it is currently a department of the Unitarian Universalist Association. It is known for publishing authors such as James B ...

, and was its editor from 1985 to 1993. Deborah McDowell was featured in the documentary Unearthed and Understood. In 2018, she was awarded the Zintl Leadership Award by the Maxine Platzer Lynn Women's Center.

Publications

* (ed. with

Arnold Rampersad Arnold Rampersad (born 13 November 1941) is a biographer, literary critic, and academic, who was born in Trinidad and Tobago and moved to the US in 1965. The first volume (1986) of his ''Life of Langston Hughes'' was a finalist for the Pulitzer ...

) ''Slavery and the Literary Imagination'' (Selected Papers from the English Institute) (1989) * (ed.) ''Plum Bun: A Novel Without A Moral'' (Black Women Writers Series), by

Jessie Redmon Fauset Jessie Redmon Fauset (April 27, 1882 – April 30, 1961) was an African-American editor, poet, essayist, novelist, and educator. Her literary work helped sculpt African-American literature in the 1920s as she focused on portraying a true image ...

(1990) * (ed.) ''Four Girls at Cottage City'', by Emma Dunham Kelley-Hawkins (The Schomburg Library of Nineteenth-Century Black Women Writers) (1991) * ''The Changing Same: Black Women's Literature, Criticism, and Theory'' (1994) * ''Leaving Pipe Shop: Memories of Kin'',

Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest publ ...

Scribners Charles Scribner's Sons, or simply Scribner's or Scribner, is an American publisher based in New York City, known for publishing American authors including Henry James, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Kurt Vonnegut, Marjorie Kinnan Rawli ...

(1997), * (ed.) ''Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass'', by

Frederick Douglass Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, February 1817 or 1818 – February 20, 1895) was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became ...

. Oxford World's Classics (1999) * (ed. with Claudrena N. Harold and

Juan Battle Juan Jose Battle is an academic, author, activist, and feminist. He is currently Presidential Professor of sociology, public health, and urban education at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He also serves as the Coordinato ...

) ''The Punitive Turn: New Approaches to Race and Incarceration'' (Carter G. Woodson Institute Series) (2013)

References

External links

''Leaving Pipe Shop'' page at the University of Virginia website
* People from Bessemer, Alabama American academics of English literature University of Virginia faculty Living people 1951 births American memoirists African-American non-fiction writers American non-fiction writers American women memoirists American women biographers Journalists from Alabama American women academics 21st-century African-American people 21st-century African-American women 20th-century African-American people 20th-century African-American women {{US-English-academic-bio-stub