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

Recent 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

March 18th, 2026 at 

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

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" 

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"

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"