Welcome!

I’m an Assistant Professor of English and James Baldwin scholar at Austin Peay State University. I earned my PhD in English from Université Paris Cité, where I specialized in African American Literature, Critical Whiteness Studies, and the transatlantic dimensions of Baldwin’s early work.

My research focuses on 20th-21st‑century African American and African Diaspora literatures, LGBTQ+ writing, and the intellectual histories of the Black Atlantic. I’m especially interested in how writers theorize race and the moral imagination through narrative form.

Teaching is central to my work. I offer courses on African American literature, and U.S. cultural history, and I strive to create classrooms that are rigorous, collaborative, and meet students where they are.

I am also committed to community engagement and public humanities initiatives that bring students, local communities, and scholars together to think collectively about literature, history, and the philosophical inquiries of our time. 

- Dr. Ronnel Keith Berry

Upcoming Publication

Ronnel Keith Berry, (2026) "Reimagining a community: White Spectrality in James Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953)," Routledge Companion to James Baldwin, Routledge Companion to James Baldwin, Routledge.

Upcoming Events

May 22nd, 2026: Invited paper at the 37th Annual Conference on American Literature (ALA) in Chicago, Panel: Calling it by its Name: A Critical Discussion of White U.S. Literature, "A Ritual Sacrifice: The Black Gaze on Whiteness in Gore Vidal’s The City and the Pillar"

January 11, 2026 at 11am: Invited paper at the 2026 MLA Convention in Toronto, "Racial Capital and the (Un)knowing of US Whiteness in James Baldwin's Another Country.

May 29th, 2025: Paper at American Comparative Literature Association, Seminar: Whiteness: Imploding the Impermeable and Invisible Monolith, "White Racism or World Community in 'This Morning, This Evening, So Soon' (1965) Part II"

March 29th, 2025: Invited paper at 2025 CAAR Conference in Berlin, Germany, "White Racism or World Community in “This Morning, This Evening, So Soon” (1965) Part I"

February 20th, 2025 at 5pm: Organizer and Respondent for Black Thought Series at Austin Peay State University, Speaker: Dr. Paul Cato, "Black Radical Love - a Testimony"