Degrees: PHD, 2001, Univ Delaware; MA, 1992, West Chester Univ PA; BA, 1990, Bloomsburg Univ

Bio:

Jennifer Henton researches and publishes primarily in the area of 20th-century African American literature and psychoanalysis. Her work considers how black literary aesthetics are intrinsically psychoanalytical and attuned to the introspective workings of subjectivity. She has written about the theoretical frameworks of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan to better understand the complexity of such works as Toni Morrison’s Sula, Octavia Butler’s Kindred, Gayle Jones’ Corregidora, and Jean Toomer’s Cane. She is currently working on a manuscript that considers the synchronic nature of black literature and psychoanalysis in such texts as Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man and Edwidge Danticat’s The Dew Breaker.

Professor Henton teaches various areas within the black Diaspora, early and modern American literature, and literary theory. Her courses taught include ante-bellum and post-bellum African American literature, black cinema, black literature and psychoanalysis, queer black literature, black science fiction, literary theory, queer theory, women’s studies, early and modern American literature, African literature, and Caribbean literature. She welcomes the opportunity to create new courses that refresh student imagination by encouraging students to read texts beyond restrictive compartments of race, sex, gender, class, and national belonging.