UNC English & Comparative Literature



RANDALL GARRETT KENANCurriculum Vita (revised 4/2018)Professor, Creative Writing ProgramDepartment of English and Comparative Literature313 Greenlaw Hall, CB#3520University of North Carolina at Chapel HillChapel Hill, NC 27599-3520919.923.3675Email: rkenan@email.unc.eduEDUCATION1985B. A., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. (English)Honors: Creative WritingMinor: Physics.PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE2017Visiting Writer-in-Residence, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN.2012-Professor, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, English and Comparative Literature Department: Creative Writing Program2003-Associate Professor, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, English andComparative Literature Department: Creative Writing Program. (Tenure in 2007)2007-Faculty, Low Residency MFA Program, Pine Manor College, Chestnut Hill,2015MA (winter term only)2010Writer-in-Residence, University of Nebraska-Lincoln (March)2004Visiting Writer, University of North Carolina at Wilmington (October)2002-2003Lehman Brady Chair Professor, Center for Documentary Studies,Duke University, Durham, NC2000-2002Assistant Professor of English, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN1998-2000Visiting Professor of Creative Writing, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN1997-1998 John & Renee Grisham Writer-in-Residence, University of Mississippi-Oxford1989-1996Lecturer, Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, NY1990-1996Lecturer, Columbia University, General College and School of the Arts MFA Program, New York, NY1995Eduord Mort-Sir Visiting Professor of Creative Writing, spring, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill1994William Blackburn Visiting Professor in Creative Writing, Fall, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina1990Lecturer, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York1985-1989Assistant Editor, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., Publisher, (Random House),New YorkWRITER’S CONFERENCES2014Lambda Writers’ Retreat, Los Angeles, CA2012, 2014Faculty, Voices of Our Nation, UC-Berkley2010-2012 Faculty, Summer Words Retreat, Aspen Institute, Aspen, CO2007 Faculty, Solstice Writer’s Conference, Pine Manor College, Chestnut Hill, MA2002- 2017, Faculty, Sewanee Writer’s Conference, University of the South, Sewanee, TN2000, 2001 Faculty, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Middlebury College, Middlebury, VT2003, 2006, 2007, 2008,2009, 2011, 2013,2015, 2017HONORS, AWARDS, GRANTS, FELLOWSHIPS AND SIMILAR HONORS2017Garden and Gun article, “Finding the Forgotten” include in Best Travel Writing of 20172017Samuel Talmadge Ragan Award for Fine Arts from St. Andrews University2016Lannan Foundation Resident Fellow, Marfa, TX.2015Vice-Chancellor, Fellowship of Southern Writers2007Elected to Fellowship of Southern Writers2005North Carolina Award for Literature2002John Dos Passos Prize1999Walking on Water nominated for Southern Book Award1999Walking on Water made a main selection for the Book of the Month Club1998Mary Hobson Medal for Arts and Letters1996-97Rome Prize of the American Academy in Rome & the American Academy of Arts and Letters; Fellow of the American Academy in Rome, 19971995Sherwood Anderson Award1995Guest-Fellow, Carolina Institute for the Arts and Humanities at UNC-Chapel Hill, (Spring)1994Whiting Writers Award1994Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship1994Let the Dead Bury Their Dead selected for Quality Paperback Book Club/New Voices Award 1993Ferro-Grumley Award1993Nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award, 1993.1992Let the Dead Bury Their Dead -- The New York Times Most Notable Books of the Year List for 19921992Finalist Los Angeles Times Book Award for Fiction.1990Lila Wallace Reader's Digest Fellow of the MacDowell Colony1989New York Foundation of the Arts Fellowship.PUBLICATIONS-BOOKS, including page lengthThe Carolina Table: North Carolina Writers on Food. Editor and Introduction. Hillsborough, NC: Eno Publishers, 2017, 185pp.The Cross of Redemption: The Uncollected Writing of James Baldwin. Editor and Introduction. New York: Pantheon, 2010; Vintage, 2011, 365 pp.The Fire This Time. New York: Melville House, 2007, 149 pp.Walking on Water: Black American Lives at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century. Alfred A. Knopf, 1999, 688 pp. [pb: New York: Vintage, 2000; UK edition; London: Little Brown, UK, 1999.]A Time Not Here. Photography: Norman Mauskoff; text: Randall Kenan. Santa Fe: Twelve Palms, 1997.James Baldwin: Author. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 1994, 2004, 148 pp.Let the Dead Bury Their Dead and Other Stories. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1992, 334 pp. [pb. Harvest, 1993; UK edition: Little, Brown, UK, 1994.]A Visitation of Spirits. New York: Grove Press, 1989, 257 pp. [pb. New York: Anchor Books, 1990; New York: Vintage, 2000; UK edition: Little, Brown, UK, 1995.]BOOKS-IN-PROGRESS“There’s a Man Going Round Taking Names,” a novel (Draft completed, finishing editing and revisions. Excerpts published).“If I Had Two Wings: Stories,” (Seven stories completed, five stories published).Researching nonfiction project on African American cowboys.PUBLICATIONS-BOOK CHAPTERS“Charlie Pride,” “Edna Lewis,” S is for Southern: A Guide to the South, New York: Harper Wave, 2017.“Holding on to the Hog,” The Southerner’s Cookbook, ed, Garden and Gun editors. New York: Harper Wave, 2015.“Chinquapin: Elementary Particles,” Amazing Place: What North Carolina Means to Writers. Ed. Marianne Gingher. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.2015.“Hillsborough: Where the Wild Things Are,” short story, 27 Views of Hillsborough. Hillsborough: Eno Press, 2010.“I Thought I Heard the Shuffle of Angels’ Feet,” short story, Between Men 2, edited by Richard Canning. New York: Alyson Books, 2009.“North Carolina,” essay, State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America. Ed. by Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey. New York: Ecco Press, 2008.“Gospel,” short story, Killing the Buddha: A Heretic’s Bible. New York: Free Press, 2004, p239-256.“Serpent Tales: They were Long, Silent, and Sometimes Deadly,” essay, Snakes: An Anthology of Serpent Tales, ed. by Willee Lewis. New York: M. Evans & Co., 2003“Now How Come That Is?,” short story, Giant Steps: The New Generation of African American Writers, edited by Kevin Young. New York: Perennial/HarperCollins, 2000.“Visitation of Spirits,” novel excerpt, Free Within Ourselves: Fiction Lessons for Black Authors, edited by Jewell Parker Rhodes. New York: Doubleday, 1999. “Now How Come That Is?” short story, The KGB Reader, edited by Ken Foster. New York: Quill/William Morrow, 1998.“The Foundations of the Earth,” short story, Norton Anthology of Southern Literature, edited by Andrews, Gwin, Harris and Hobson. New York: W.W. Norton, 1997.“Run, Mourner, Run,” short story, Children of the Night: African American Short Stories, edited by Gloria Naylor. New York: HarperCollins, 1996.“Wash Me,” short story, Shade: An Anthology of Fiction by Gay Men of African Descent, edited by Bruce Morrow and Charles H. Rowell. New York: Avon Books, 1996.“Mr. Brown and the Sweet Science of Life,” essay, Speak My Name: An Anthology of African American Men, edited by Don Belton. Boston: Beacon Press, 1995.“Children of the Morning: An Afternoon in Cleveland,” profile, Twenty Questions for the Writer: A Rhetoric with Readings, sixth edition, edited by Jacqueline Berke and Randal Woodland. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1995.“Hobbits and Hobgoblins,” short story, Writer’s Harvest, edited by William H. Shore. New York: Harvest/Harcourt, Brace, 1994.“Run, Mourner, Run,” short story, The Penguin Book of Gay Short Stories, edited by David Leavitt and Mark Mitchell. New York: Viking, 1994. “The Strange and Tragic Ballad of Mabel Pearsall,” short story, [also an interview by Ketchin], The Christ-Haunted Landscape: Faith and Doubt in Southern Fiction, edited by Susan Ketchin. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1994."A Visitation of Spirits,” first chapter excerpted, Being in the World: An Environmental Reader for Writers, edited by Scott H. Slovic and Terrel F. Dixon. New York: MacMillan, 1992. "The Virtue Called Vanity,” short story, The Rough Road Home: Stories by North Carolina Writers, edited by Robert Gingher. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992."A Visitation of Spirits," first chapter excerpted, Breaking Ice: An Anthology of Contemporary African-American Fiction, edited by Terry McMillan. New York: Viking, 1990.PUBLICATIONS-REFEREED BOOK CHAPTERS “The Good Ship Jesus: James Baldwin, Ingmar Bergman, and the Protestant Imagination,” African American Review. Vol. 46, No. 4. Winter 2013. pp. 701-714.“James Baldwin, 1924-1987: A Brief Biography, “A Historical Guide to James Baldwin, edited by Douglas Field. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009, pp. 22-60.PUBLICATIONS-BOOK INTRODUCTIONSBen Stroud, Byzantium. Minneapolis: Graywolf Press, 2013.Jerome Wilson, Paper Gardens and Other Stories. Memphis: Kerlak Publishing, 2005Racing Home: New Stories by Award-Winning North Carolina Writers, edited by Sharlene Baker. Wake Forest: The Paper Journey Press, 2000.The Prentice Hall Anthology of African American Literature, edited by Rochelle Smith and Sharon L. Jones. New York: Prentice Hall, 1999.James Allan MacPherson, Elbow Room. New York: Quality Paperback Book Club, 1996.W.E.B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk. New York: Signet, 1995.PUBLICATIONS-SHORT FICTION“Resurrection Hardware,” Oxford American, Spring 2018,“Raven Dancing on the Plains,” Grist, Spring 2017.“When We All Get to Heaven,” Virginia Quarterly Review, Spring 2013.“The Eternal Glory That is Ham-Hocks,” Prairie Schooner, Winter 2012.“There’s A Man Going Round Taking Names,” [novel excerpt], Barely South Review, January, 2011. “Ain’t No Sunshine,” short story, Black Renaissance/Black Noir, 2008.“The Boy Who Played Cards with the Devil,” [novel excerpt], Callaloo, Winter 2000.“Where She Sits,” short story, On the Table, 1999.“Now Why Come that Is?,” short story, Callaloo, Winter 1998."The Virtue Called Vanity," short story, Boston Review, Fall 1992."The Origin of Whales," short story, Southern Exposure, Summer 1992."Run, Mourner, Run," short story, NYQ, April 1992."Cornsilk," short story, Bomb, Spring 1992.PUBLICATIONS-BOOK REVIEWSHow I Shed my Skin, Jim Grimsley, Algonquin, in The New York Times (June 5, 2015).Best African American Essays, Debra J. Dickerson (ed), Bantam, 2009, in News & Observer (February 22, 2009).NC Literary Trails, GeorgeAnn Eubanks, University of North Carolina Press, 2008, in Duke Magazine (February 2008).The Darkest Child, Delores Phillips, Soho Press, 2004, in New Leader (November/December, 2003).Night Talk, Elizabeth Cox, Graywolf Press, 1997, in Brightleaf (Jan/Feb, 1998).Last Night on Earth, Bill T. Jones, Pantheon, 1995, in The Village Voice (August 1995).James Baldwin: A Biography, David Leeming, Alfred A. Knopf, 1994, in The Nation (May 2, 1994).Wolf Whistle, Lewis Nordan, Algonquin, 1993, in The Nation (November 15, 1993).Coming Up Down Home, Cecil Brown, Ecco Press, 1993, in The New York Times Book Review (August 22, 1993).Bats Out of Hell, Barry Hannah, Houghton, Mifflin, 1993, in The Boston Globe (January 31, 1993).Bastard Out of Carolina, Dorothy Allison, Dutton, 1992, in The Nation ( December 28, 1992).Where is Here?, Joyce Carol Oates, Ecco, 1992, in New York Times Book Review (November 1, 1992).Los Gusanos, John Sayles, Harper/Collins, 1991, in The Nation (June 24, 1991).Vanishing Rooms, Melvin Dixon, Dutton, 1992, in Emerge (April 1991).Fever and Other Stories, John Edgar Wideman, Henry Holt, 1989, inThe Nation (January 1, 1990).PUBLICATIONS-ESSAYS AND ARTICLES [in books and journals]“The Descendants,” Garden and Gun, February/March 2018.“Finding the Forgotten,” Garden and Gun, August/September 2016.“Greens: A Mess of Memories about Taste,” Ecotone, Issue 18, Vol. 10.1. (Fall 2014).“Michael Twitty: The Antebellum Chef,” Garden and Gun, December/January 2014“Forbidden Colors,” by Yukio Mishima, Fifty Gay and Lesbian Books Everybody Must Read, edited by Richard Canning. Alyson Books, 2009.“Earthly Powers,” “A Dream Like Mine,” “Sour Sweet,” City Secrets’ Books: The Essential Insider’s Guide. Fang Duff Kahn Publishers, 2009.“Ghost Dog: Or How I Wrote My First Novel,” ejournal [U.S. State Department: online: , #0209lit] 2009."Get a Grip, There's No Quick Fix for Our Problems," (On Barak Obama), London Evening Standard, November 6, 2008.“Marching On,” The Washington Post Magazine, November 27, 2003“Serpent Tales,” The Washington Post Magazine, July 8, 2001“The Weirdness of Modern Faith,” essay on artist Melissa Weinman, Image, Spring 2001“Where R U, John Crussell? Or, Inventing Humanity, One Play at a Time,” Loss Within Loss: Artists in the Age of AIDS, ed. Edmund White. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2001.“Love and Labor,” essay, Yalobusha Review, 1998“Singing Daphne,” essay, Pembroke Magazine, #29, 1997."Children of the Morning,” cover profile of hip-hop group Arrested Development, Spin, December, 1992."Summer Reading," American Visions, June, 1992."Interview with Octavia E. Butler," Callaloo, Spring 1991.“Erroll McDonald," Emerge, January 1991.CRITICAL WRITING ON RANDALL KENAN [Selected]:(Alphabetical)Betts, Doris, “Randall Garrett Kenan,: Myth and Reality in Tims Creek.” Southern Writers at Century’s End, ed. by Folks, Jeffrey J. and James A. Perkins. Louisville: University of Kentucky Press. 1997.Davis, Thadious M, Southscapes: Geographies of Race, Region, and Literature (New Directions in Southern Studies). University of North Carolina Press, 2011.Harris, Trudier, “Southern Voices, Southern Tales: Randall Kenan’s ‘Clarence and the Dead,’” The Power of the Porch: The Storyteller’s Craft in Zora Neale Hurston, Gloria Naylor, and Randall Kenan, The University of Georgia Press, 1996.Harris(Lopez), Trudier, “Transformations of the Land in Randall Kenan’s ‘The Foundations of the Earth,’” South of Tradition: Essays on African American Literature, The University of Georgia Press, 2002.Holland, Sharon Patricia, “(Pro)Creating Imaginative Spaces and Other Queer Acts: Randall Kenan’s A Visitation of Spirits and Its Revival of James Baldwin’s Absent Black Gay Man in Giovanni’s Room,” Raising the Dead: Readings of Death and (Black) Subjectivity. Duke University Press, 2000.Hovis, George, “’I Contain Multitudes: Randall Kenan’s Walking on Water as Collective Autobiography,” Southern Literary Journal, Spring 2004.Hovis, George, “Randall Kenan: The Black Yeomen.”Vale of Humility: Plain Folk in Contemporary North Carolina Fiction. University of South Carolina Press (2007)McRuer, Robert, “A Visitation of Difference: Randall Kenan and Black Queer Theory,” Critical Essays: Gay and Lesbian Writers of Color (Research on Homosexuality), ed. Emmanuel S. Nelson. Haworth Press. 1993.Miner, Valerie “Carolina Dreaming,” The Nation, July 6, 1992Powell, Tara, The Intellectual in Twentieth-Century Southern Literature (Southern Literary Studies), Louisiana State University Press, 2012.Smith McKoy, Sheila, “Rescuing the Black Homosexual Lambs: Randall Kenan and the Reconstruction of Southern Gay Masculinity,” Contemporary Black Men’s Fiction and Drama, edited by Keith Clark, University of Illinois Press, 2001.Tucker, Lindsey, “Gay Identity, Conjure, and the Uses of Postmodern Ethnography in the Fictions of Randall Kenan,” Modern Fiction Studies, Summer 2003.Webster, Maisha, American Gothic: Screams from Shadowed Places (Chapter Six: “The Lost Voices of Tims Creek: Narrative Reinscription in A Visitation of Spirits and ‘Let the Dead Bury Their Dead.’” London: Palgrave MacMillian (2022)INTERVIEWS-PRINT [Selected]Gambone, Philp, “Randall Kenan,” Travels in a Gay Nation: Portraits of LGBTQ Americans. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press. 2010.“Three Questions,” Publisher’s Weekly, August 2007.Orecklin, Michele, “A Twist on Tradition,” Time, July 10, 2000.Gambone, Philip, “Randall Kenan,” Something Inside: Conversations with Gay Fiction Writers. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press. 1999.Rowell, Charles, “An Interview with Randall Kenan,” Callaloo, 21.1, 1998Hunt, V., “A Conversation with Randall Kenan,” African American Review, Autumn, 1995.INVITED PUBLIC LECTURES (Selected)“Crook’s Corner and the New Demography of North Carolina,” keynote address, Southern Foodways Alliance, University of Mississippi-Oxford, October 2014.“The Hog of Life: Meditations on North Carolina Barbecue,” keynote address, Southern Foodways Alliance, University of Mississippi-Oxford, October 2012.“William Faulkner: Where Have All the Modernist Gone?,” keynote address, University of Mississippi-Oxford, William Faulkner Conference, July 2012.“Haints and Boggers: The Supernatural in Southern Fiction,” The Carol Grotnes Belk Distinguished Lecture, Appalachian State University, July, 2011.“Cultural Appropriation Versus Tribalism; or, The Revenge of the Magic Negro,” keynote address, African American Literature Conference, Pennsylvania State University, September, 2011.“It’s Clobbering Time! Comic Books and Creating the Idea of Black Masculinity,” Wilson Library, UNC-Chapel Hill, 2/14/2010.“Richard Wright and Black Masculinity,” keynote address, Richard Wright Conference, University of Utah-Salt Lake, 4/3/2009“Whatever Happened to the ‘New Black Aesthetic’?” The Gathering, UNC-CH, English Dept., 6/11/2005INVITED READINGS (selected)Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN (2017)Converse University, Spartanburg, FL (2017)Marfa, TX (2016)Lannan Foundation, Sante Fe (2015)Cameron University (2012)University of Oregon-Eugene (2012)American University (2011)Ohio State University (2011)University of Memphis (2011)The Mayborn Nonfiction Festival/University of North Texas (2011)Rutgers-Newark (2010)Emory University (2010)Old Dominion University (2010)SUNY-Oneonta (2010)University of West Georgia-Carrolton (2010)Georgia Perimeter University (2010)Vanderbilt University (2010)Eudora Welty Conference-Natchez, MS (2019)Festival for the Book/UVA (2009)Mount Olive College (2009)Coastal Carolina University (2008)University Alabama-Birmingham (2008)Princeton University (April 2007) Fellowship of Southern Writers (March 2007)Mars Hill College (Feb 2007)University of South Carolina-Columbia (April 2007)George Mason University (Spring 2006)The New School, New York, NY (Spring 2006)Ackland Arts Museum, Chapel Hill (Spring 2006)San Antonio Express Newspaper, San Antonio, TX (11/11/05)Murray State University, MFA Program, Murray Kentucky (7/10/05)North Carolina Bookwatch, WUNC-TV (taped 4/8/05)Middlebury College, Middlebury, VT (4/27/05)Loyola University, Baltimore, MD (3/14/05)Friends of the Library, Pittsboro, NC (2/20/05)Long Island University, Brooklyn, NY (2/9/05)North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC (11/18/04)University of North Carolina at Wilmington (11/11/04)East Carolina University (10/23/05)North Carolina Writers Network, Peace College, Raleigh, NC (5/15/04)Friends of the Library, South Boston, VA (4/22/04)North Carolina Writer’s Festival, NCSU (4/18/04)Murray State University, Murray, KY (3/30/04)University of Michigan-Dearborn (3/19/04)College of Santa Fe, Santa Fe, NM (3/8/04)(Pre-2004 readings-Selected)National Humanities CenterNew York Public LibraryMiami Book Fair Goddard CollegeHarvard University C-Span, BooknotesUniversity of Richmond University of California-San DiegoCollege Language Association/Daytona Beach/Winston-Salem,Provincetown Fine Arts Works Center University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill North Carolina Writers Network/Wilmington/Chapel Hill North Carolina State University Dark Room Collective (Cambridge, MA)PEN Poetry Project: Kannapolis/HolyokeUniversity of Mississippi-Oxford: Faulkner SymposiumMississippi University for Women: Eudora Welty SymposiumEmory University National Black Arts Festival-AtlantaSt. Marks Poetry Project-New York University of Minnesota-MinneapolisPhoenix College Northwestern Arizona UniversityArizona State University COURSES TAUGHT AT UNC-CHAPEL HILLIntroduction to Fiction WritingIntermediate Fiction WritingAdvanced Fiction WritingSenior Honors Fiction Writing SeminarNonfiction Writing (Reportage)Nonfiction Writing (Food Writing)Advanced NonfictionNorth Carolina LiteratureSeveral independent studies with undergraduates and graduate studentsPROFESSIONAL SERVICECenter for Documentary Studies, Board of Directors, Development Committee (2015-2017) Executive Committee (2017-)PEN Bingham Award for Debut Fiction, JudgeNew England PEN Book Award, Judge, 2014NC Poet Laureate Selection Committee, North Carolina Arts Council, 2014NC Poet Laureate Selection Committee, Chair, North Carolina Arts Council, 2012Bread Loaf/Bakeless Book Prize, judge, 2012, for first work of fiction to be published by Graywolf Press, 2013PEN Open Book Award, judge 2010Eno Publishers, Board of Directors, 2011-PEN/Faulkner Award, judge, 2009Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, Board of Directors, 2005-North Carolina Festival for the Book, Board of Directors, 2005-2006, 2009National Book Award, judge, 1994, 2004North Carolina Arts Council, panel, 2003Thomas Wolfe Award, 1996National Endowment for the Arts Panel in Literature, 1995UNC-CHAPEL HILL SERVICEDiversity Liaison, Department of English and Comparative Literature (Fall 2016)Ph.D. Dissertation Committee: Phillip Sandick, E.A. MoorePh.D. Dissertation Committee: Zachery VernonSearch Committee, Assistant Professor in Creative Writing, 2012Search Committee, Dean: College of Arts and Sciences (UNC), 2006-7Honors Thesis Committee (Spring 2005, 2012)Selection committee for Senior Honors Fiction (Spring 2005-)Selection committee for Susan Bloch Literary Award (Spring 2005)Selection committee for Kenan Visiting Writer (Spring 2005)Selection committee for Kenan Visiting Writer, chair, (Spring 2010)Faculty advisor, UNC-CH Men’s Club Soccer (2004-2005)Selection committee for English 35 (Fall 2004) ................
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