Jeffrey Allen Tucker

Associate Professor of English

PhD  Princeton University
African-American literature, 20th-century American literature, science fiction

Research/Writing interests

Jeffrey Tucker studies literature as a context for discussions about postmodernism, cultural and identity politics, and racial representation. Much of his research has addressed the genre of science fiction. His current projects include articles on technology and identity in novels by Octavia E. Butler as well as a study of the life and writings of John A. Williams. Jeffrey Tucker also serves as director of the Frederick Douglass Institute for African and African-American Studies.

Selected publications

• A Sense of Wonder:  Samuel R. Delany, Race, Identity, and Difference, Wesleyan 2004
  
• Race Consciousness:  African-American Studies for the New Century, NYU 1997 (co-editor)
  
• “The Human Contradiction:  Identity and/as Essence in Octavia E. Butler’s Xenogenesis Series,” forthcoming in Yearbook of English Studies 37.2 (2007)
  
• “Contending Forces: Racial and Sexual Narratives in Samuel R. Delany’s Dhalgren,” in Science Fiction: Critical Frontiers, St. Martin’s 2000
  

Teaching

Courses in African-American fiction, drama, and autobiography; science fiction; and postmodernism

Recent undergraduate courses

• Introduction to African-American Literature (spring 2007)
  
• Slavery and the African-American Novel (spring 2005)
  
• The Harlem Renaissance (fall 2004)
  
• The Outsider in Literature (spring 2007)
  
• Science Fiction (spring 2005)
  

Recent graduate courses

• The African-American Postmodern
  
• The Africanist Presence in American Literature (fall 2006)
  

Honors

• G. Graydon and Jane W. Curtis Award for Excellence in Teaching, University of Rochester
  
• Bridging Fellowship, College of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering, University of Rochester
  
• Du Bois-Mandela-Rodney Post-Doctoral Fellowship, University of Michigan Center for Afroamerican and African Studies
  
• Summer Stipend Award, National Endowment for the Humanities
  

Jeffrey Tucker’s CV

jeffrey.tucker@rochester.edu
(585) 275-2064
418 Morey Hall