English
Juan Rodriguez Barrera
Assistant Professor of English
Mon: 10-11:15 a.m.
Tue: 10-11:15 a.m.
Wed: 10-11:15 a.m.
Fri: 10-11:15 a.m.

Education:
Ph.D., American Culture, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, 2023
B.S., Criminal Justice & English, Rutgers University-Newark, 2013
A.A. Criminal Justice, Hudson County Community College, 2004
Courses Frequently Taught:
English 352: 鈥淎merican Literature after 1865鈥
English 351: 鈥淢anifest Destinies: American Literature to 1865鈥
English / History 257: 鈥淧romised Lands: A Cultural and Literary History of the Great
Migration, 1917鈥1970鈥
English 220: 鈥淢ulticultural Literature鈥 / 鈥淪peculative Fiction of the Working Class鈥
Recent and Forthcoming Publications:
鈥淟iterary Interracialism at Midcentury: Arna Bontemps, Jack Conroy, and the Wartime
Popular Front.鈥 MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States. Forthcoming.
鈥淏lack Radicals in the Illinois Writers鈥 Project: Intellectual Labor, Sociology, and
Chicago鈥檚 New Literary Awakening.鈥 Working through the Federal Writers鈥 Project: Labor, Place, Representation, and Archive. Eds. Michele Fazio and Maureen Curtin. Forthcoming.
鈥淎ttaway William (1911鈥1986).鈥 Dictionnaire mondial des litt茅ratures prol茅tariennes (1917鈥1939) [World Dictionary
of Proletarian Literatures (1917鈥1939)]. Eds. Anthony Glinoer and Victoria Pleuchot. Montreal: M 脡diteur. Forthcoming 2027
(in French).
鈥淛ack London鈥檚 The Iron Heel and America鈥檚 Descent into Fascism.鈥 Cultural Logic. Forthcoming November 2026.
鈥淟angston Hughes, Nationalism and the Internationalist Horizon: Viewing America at
250.鈥 Against the Current 243 (July/August 2026): 23鈥27.
Homepage:
Professional and Personal:
Existing at the intersection of American and African American studies, my scholarship
and teaching focus broadly on literary multiculturalism and 20th-century African American
culture, literature, and history, with a particular emphasis on the Black literary
Left of the Great Depression and Cold War eras. In recent years, I have been especially
fascinated with the Black Chicago Renaissance, a relatively overlooked moment of cultural
efflorescence among African American writers, artists, and intellectuals that spanned
the 1930s and 1940s. My work often blends archival research and intellectual and literary
histories to illuminate the production and reception of politically engaged literary
texts, including those written by forgotten authors. As a teacher, I aim to foster
what Paulo Freire once termed critical consciousness, the ability 鈥渢o perceive social,
political, and economic contradictions and to take action against those oppressive
elements.鈥 My interests include writing (mainly poetry and short fiction), reading,
playing story-rich video games, collecting Lego sets, and spending time with my wonderful
spouse and our two feline children.