Biography
James E. Smethurst
is Professor of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
He is the author of
The African American Roots of Modernism: Reconstruction to the Harlem Renaissance;
The Black Arts Movement: Literary Nationalism in the 1960s and 1970s;
and
The New Red Negro: The Literary Left and African American Poetry, 1930-1946
. He is co-editor (with Sonia Sanchez and John H. Bracey Jr.) of
SOS –
Calling All Black People: A Black Arts Movement Reader
, a history of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. The book depicts the works of the politically motivated Black poets, artists, dramatists,
musicians, and writers who emerged in the wake of the Black Power Movement. His scholarly
interests include African American literature, culture, and intellectual history from
the late 19th to the late 20th centuries, with particular emphasis on Black cultural
and political radicalism, 20th-century poetry in English, and gender studies.
Smethurst was honored as part of Stony Brook University's 2016 Black History Month
observance.
