Robert Patterson

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Robert Patterson received his B.A. in English from Georgetown University and his Ph.D. from Emory University. He teaches in the English Department at Florida State University, where he specializes in African American literary and cultural studies. His primary research analyzes the ways in which the biblical notion of Chosenness has been a defining yet under-theorized aspect of African American literary and cultural studies. Patterson is the recipient of a Ford Pre-doctoral Fellowship and has contributed to The Fiction of Toni Morrison: Teaching and Writing on Race, Culture, and Identity (2007) and The Cambridge Companion to African American Women’s Writing (forthcoming). He currently is working on his first book project, tentatively titled Are Many Called, But Few Chosen? Contemporary African American Literature and a New Direction for Political Enfranchisement, which examines African American literature’s preoccupation with African Americans’ quests for civil rights, and the attendant notion of God-sent (Chosen) figures who lead civil rights movements. In addition to literary studies, Patterson’s research and teaching interests include the fields of African American, American, Cultural, and Gender Studies, as well as Liberation and Womanist Theologies.

Media

Let Freedom Ring | April 17, 2008
Symposium IV | Advancing American Ideals: Democracy as a Goal for the Arts