Education
Ph.D., English, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1998
M.A., English, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1990
B.A., English, State University of New York at Binghamton, 1984
Bio
Professor McKible primarily teaches courses in American and African American literature. He is co-editor of a special issue of Modernism/modernity devoted to the Harlem Renaissance (September 2013) and of Littles Magazines and Modernism: New Approaches (Ashgate, 2007). In 2004, Harper Collins published Edward Christopher Williams’s, When Washington Was in Vogue, a previously lost novel of the Harlem Renaissance discovered and introduced by Professor McKible. He is also the author of The Space and Place of Modernism: The Russian Revolution, Little Magazines, and New York (Routledge, 2002). His essays on little magazines, modernism, and African American literature appear in The Oxford Handbook of Modernisms (Oxford 2011), Teaching the Harlem Renaissance: Course Design and Classroom Strategies (Peter Lang 2007), The Black Press (Rutgers, 2001), African American Review, Contemporary Literature Criticism, The Dictionary of Literary Biography, American Periodicals, and various dictionaries and encyclopedias.
Professional Memberships
Chair, Nominations and Elections, Modernist Studies Association (2011-2014)
Editorial Board, Journal of Modern Periodical Studies
Course Taught
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Principal Faculty. NEH Summer Institute, “City of Print: New York and the Periodical Press,” June 2015.
CUNY Graduate Center
Modernist Periodical Culture: Theory and Practice (Spring 2013)
An engagement with studies of modernism, periodicals, and print culture. This course investigated various iterations and definitions of “modernism,” introduced students to archival and digital practices, and explored the dominant theoretical concerns of the field.
Race, Ethnicity, and Pseudoscience in Modern American Literature (Fall 2007)
An examination of American modernism in conjunction with key statements on race and ethnicity. The course also introduced students to periodical studies through individual presentations on The Saturday Evening Post.
John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York
The Harlem Renaissance, North and South, Black and White (Literature 379)
A special historical topics course focusing on key dynamics of the Harlem Renaissance.
Topics in Twentieth Century Literature: American Modernism: Writing/Reading 1922 (Literature 375)
A historically contextualized examination of literature and journalism published in and/or about 1922.
Text and Context: The New Negro and The Harlem Renaissance (Literature 300)
A close reading of Alain Locke's New Negro anthology through the multiple contextual lenses of African American politics and aesthetics, print culture, and literary criticism.
Topics in Twentieth Century Literature: The Jazz Age (Literature 375)
A historically contextualized study of literature, art, and music in the years between the end of World War One and the beginning of the Great Depression.
Literature of the Harlem Renaissance (Literature 399)
An examination of the historical context, political concerns, and aesthetic developments associated with the explosion of African American creativity during the first decades of the twentieth century.
Novels of the Harlem Renaissance (Literature 399)
A study of major novels of the period written by both black and white authors.
Immigration, Migration, and the American Experience (Literature 290)
An examination of twentieth-century American literature that explores the shifting meanings of citizenship, ethnicity, and identity in US literature.
Literature as Witness: African American Experiences (Literature 237)
An analysis of African American literature as an engagement with and challenge to racism and white supremacy in the U.S.
Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s (Literature 233)
A study of the literature of immigration, modernization, and shifting cultural expectations during New York City’s most vibrant decade.
The African American Experience: Comparative Racial Perspectives (Literature 340)
An examination of representations of African Americans and their experiences through works by both Black and non-Black writers.
African American Literature (Literature 223)
A survey that explores a wide range of African American aesthetic and intellectual responses to life in the United States.
Narratives of Captivity, Fictions of Identity (Literature 233)
An examination of American literature from the colonial era to the present that addresses such topics as freedom, individuality, citizenship, and ethnicity.
Modern Literature (Literature 232)
A survey of non-American literature of the modern era. Topics covered include changing responsibilities in the modern era, developing sciences and technologies, colonial and postcolonial experience, and the clash of tradition and modernity.
Classical Literature (Literature 230)
A survey of literature from the ancient world that examines Sumerian, Greek, and Roman epics, Greek tragedy and comedy, and various philosophical texts.
Introduction to Literary Studies (Literature 260)
A required course for English majors and minors that provides students with fundamental skills necessary for the study of literature.
Thematic Studies Theme B7: Civil War and Slavery: Experience and Memory
A team-taught, interdisciplinary examination of the American Civil War
Interdisciplinary Studies Program, Theme A4: The Outsider
A team-taught, interdisciplinary writing course focusing on the experiences of marginalization.
Interdisciplinary Studies Program, Theme B12: Slaves, Heroes, and Villains: Reading History through Science Fiction
A team-taught, interdisciplinary examination of the intersections of history and science fiction
Scholarly Work
Books and Edited Editions
Gathering Memories: The Life and Legacy of Dr. J. Lee Greene. Edited by Keith Clark, Leslie Frost, and Adam McKible. Horse & Buggy Press, 2018.
In Conversation: The Harlem Renaissance and the New Modernist Studies, a special issue of Modernism/modernity, Vol. 20.3 (2013). Edited by Adam McKible and Suzanne Churchill.
Little Magazines and Modernism: New Approaches. Edited and introduced by Suzanne Churchill and Adam McKible. Ashgate, 2007.
Little Magazines and Modernism, a special issue of American Periodicals: A Journal of History, Criticism, and Bibliography, Vol. 15.1 (2005). Edited by Suzanne Churchill and Adam McKible.
When Washington Was in Vogue, by Edward C. Williams. Edited with an Introduction by Adam McKible. HarperCollins, 2004.
The Space and Place of Modernism: Little Magazines, The Russian Revolution, and New York. Routledge, 2002. Re-released in paperback, 2013.
Essays
“The Midnight Motion Picture Company Goes to Europe.” Miriam Taggert, ed. African American Literature in Transition, 1920-1930. Cambridge University Press (forthcoming).
“Alain Locke, Counteé Cullen, and the Sexual/Textual Politics of the New Negro.” Venetria Patton, ed. Teaching the Harlem Renaissance. New York: Mocdern Language Association (forthcoming).
“Adam Nehemiah!” In Gathering Memories: The Life and Legacy of Dr. J. Lee Greene, ed. by Keith Clark, Leslie Frost, and Adam McKible. Horse & Buggy Press, 2018.
"Nella Larsen’s Passing." Penguin Classics Newsletter, September, 2016.
"“We Return Fighting”: Black Doughboys and the Battle of Representation." American Periodicals: A Journal of History & Criticism 26.2 (2016): 167-182.
"When All Seemed Lost." American Periodicals: A Journal of History & Criticism 25.1 (2015): 68-69.
“Introduction: In Conversation: The Harlem Renaissance and the New Modernist Studies,” co-authored with Suzanne Churchill. In Modernism/modernity Vol. 20.3 (2013): 427-431.
“Modernism in Magazines,” co-authored with Suzanne Churchill. In The Oxford Handbook of Modernisms, ed. by Peter Brooker, Andrzej Gasiorek, Deborah Parsons, and Andrew Thacker. Oxford UP, 2011.
“History as Narrative,” with Herb Boyd, Valerie Boyd, and Christopher John Farley. In Meditations and Ascensions: Black Writers on Writing (proceedings of the Eighth National Black Writers Conference). Third World Press, 2008.
“When Washington Was in Vogue.” In Teaching the Harlem Renaissance: Course Design and Classroom Strategies. Michael Soto, ed. New York: Peter Lang, 2007.
“’Life is real and life is earnest’: Mike Gold, Claude McKay, and the Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven.” American Periodicals, Vol. 15.1 (2005): 56-73. Also in Little Magazines and Modernism: New Approaches.
With Suzanne Churchill. “Little Magazines and Modernism: An Introduction.” American Periodicals, Vol. 15.1 (2005): 1-5.
“‘Our (?) Country’: Mapping “These ‘Colored’ United States” in The Messenger.” The Black Press: New Literary and Historical Essays. Todd Vogel, ed. Rutgers UP, 2001.
“‘These are the facts of the darky’s history’: Thinking History and Reading Names in Four African American Texts.” African American Review 28.2 (1994): 223-235. Reprinted in Contemporary Literary Criticism, Vol. 131 (2000): 278-286.
Dictionaries and Encylopedias
"The Little Magazines." The Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Fiction. Brian W. Shaffer, ed. Hoboken, NJ: Blackwell Publishing, 2011.
“Williams, Edward Christopher.” Harlem Renaissance Lives. Henry Louis Gates and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. New York: Oxford UP, 2008.
“Williams, Edward Christopher.” The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Literature. Hans Ostrom and J. David Macey, eds. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2005.
“Williams, Edward Christopher.” Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance. Cary D. Wintz and Paul Finkelman, eds. New York: Routledge, 2004.
The Liberator.” Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 303: American Radical and Reform Writers, First Series. Steven Rosendale, ed. Thomson Gale, 2004.
Review Essay
"Seeing Complexity and Hearing Laughter in the Harlem Renaissance." Modernism/modernity, Vol. 23.4 (2016): 897-904.
Reviews
Review of Catherine Keyser, Playing Smart: New York Women and Modern Magazine Culture. In American Periodicals: A Journal of History, Criticism, and Bibliography 2012 22(2): 218-20.
Review of Robert Scholes and Clifford Wulfman, Modernism in the Magazines: An Introduction. In American Periodicals: A Journal of History, Criticism, and Bibliography 2012 22(1):107-9.
Review of David Earle, Re-Covering Modernism: Pulps, Paperbacks, and the Prejudice of Form. In American Periodicals: A Journal of History, Criticism, and Bibliography 2011 21(1):89-91.
Review of Ann Ardis and Patrick Collier (eds), Transatlantic Print Culture, 1880–1940: Emerging Media, Emerging Modernisms. In The Review of English Studies 2009 60(247):830-831.
In Progress
George Horace Lorimer and the Harlem Renaissance.
Honors and Awards
CUNY Research in the Classroom Idea Grant, 2017
Office for the Advancement of Research Senior Scholar Release Award, 2017, 2015
PSC/CUNY Research Foundation Grants, 2002-2003, 2003-2004, 2004-2005, 2011-2012, 2013-2014, 2015-16, 2017-18
Research Summary
Adam McKible works primarily at the intersection of modernist studies, periodical studies, and Harlem Renaissance studies. His first book examines the impact of the Russian Revolution on the formation of American modernism in four seminal little magazines of the 1910s and 20s. He co-edited a volume of scholarly essays exploring the twinned rise of modernism and little magazines. His work on the Harlem Renaissance includes the publication of Edward Christopher Williams's novel, When Washington Was in Vogue, as well as the publication of various essays on the era.
I am currently working on a manuscript provisionally entitled Jim Crow Modernism, The Saturday Evening Post and the Harlem Renaissance, which makes three interrelated claims. First, I argue that American modernism in the early twentieth century is best understood primarily as “Jim Crow modernism,” because the culture of de facto and de jure segregation that developed after the 1896 Plessy vs. Ferguson decision shaped nearly every aspect of American life. Second, I pursue this argument by focusing on George Horace Lorimer’s four-decade editorship of The Saturday Evening Post, which was the largest circulation US magazine during the Jim Crow era. In particular, I examine Lorimer’s long running practice of publishing black dialect stories written by white authors in order to describe the politics and practices of stereotyping that occupied a central position in American print culture. Third, I argue that we can better understand the efforts and achievements of African American authors associated with the Harlem Renaissance by reading their work as being in dialogue and contestation with the Post’s white authors, and with Jim Crow modernism more broadly. Ultimately, my project provides readers with a greater understanding of the constructions of blackness that dominated American print culture, and with an enhanced contextualization of the literature of the Harlem Renaissance.
