Elizabeth Muther

Elizabeth Muther works in 20^th and 21^st century American and African American literatures with teaching and research interests in humor theory, visual culture studies, poetry, and children’s literature.  She has developed a cluster of courses that approach literary texts through theoretical and historical engagements with visual culture: “African American Literature and Visual Culture,” “Of Comics and Culture” (on graphic narratives and sequential art), “African American Children’s Literature,” “The Harlem Renaissance,” and “African American Film.”  She recently co-curated an exhibition at the Bowdoin Museum of Art entitled “Letters and Shadows: African American Art and Literature” that was linked to one of these courses. Her current book project, Shadow Dancing: Racial Doubles in Performance, explores the problems of racial mimicry and of shadow figures in American expressive culture.