Joyce provides expertise on African American issues at Temple

Joyce Ann Joyce ("70) has joined the Temple University faculty as chair of the African American Studies department in the College of Arts and Sciences in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

She is regarded as an expert on issues involving African American literature and criticism; popular rhythms and poetic expression; Black women writers; and women's voices. Joyce is the author of Ijala: Sonia Sanchez and the African Poetic Tradition; Warriors, Conjurers and Priests: Defining African-centered Literary Criticism; and Native Son: Richard Wright's Art of Tragedy. She is currently writing a book about twentieth-century novelist Zora Neale Hurston.

Joyce has also published many articles on topics such as race, culture and gender; Black literary criticism; Black professionals; and the politics of publishing, racism, elitism, and sexism. Her work has appeared in Black Books Bulletin, Western Journal of Black Studies, Mississippi Quarterly, New Literary History, Journal of Black Studies, Nethula Journal, and the Indian Journal of American Studies.

She has lectured on Black literature, writer Richard Wright, and poet Etheridge Knight in many public and academic arenas, including Harvard University, University of Chicago, Hastings College, Elmhurst College, Kennesaw College, Valdosta State University, the Harold Washington Library, the National Black Arts Festival, and the Chicago Historical Society.

Joyce is a member of the Outside Evaluation Committee for the Department of Black and Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College; an editor for Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., and Warpland: A Journal of Black Literature and Ideas; a contributing editor for Black Books Bulletin; and a consultant for Profiles of Great African Americans. A past member of the editorial board of the Journal of Explorations in Ethnic Studies, she has consulted for the University of Tennessee Press, the Modern Language Association, and the Johns Hopkins Press.

She holds memberships in the Modern Language Association, the George Moses Horton Society, and the National Council of Black Studies. Before accepting the position at Temple University, Joyce taught at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, the University of Maryland, and Chicago State University, and served as an associate director of the Gwendolyn Brooks Center.

Source: VSU Alumni Bulletin.