Title: “Nappy Edges and Goldy Locks: The Race and Gender Politics of Hair”

This talk aims to be a conversation about African American hair as a lens through which to read complex constructions of race and gender as they relate to beauty and identity. Through children’s texts, music, literature, and popular culture, Dr. Lester explores how the issue of African Americans and hair extends far beyond “big hair” and “bad hair day.”

Dr. Neal A. Lester, Chair of the Department of English at Arizona State University, has been a professor of English since the fall of 1997. His area of specialization is African American literary and cultural studies. Dr. Lester earned his B.A. in English from State University of West Georgia and his M.A. and Ph.D. in English at Vanderbilt University. He has published on and taught courses in African American children's literature, African American drama, African American folklore, African American images in American cinema, and black/ white interracial intimacies in American culture.

The author of Ntozake Shange: A Critical Study of the Plays (1995) and Understanding Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God: A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historical Documents (1999), Dr. Lester has also published, lectured, and taught extensively in the area of African American children's literature. He has published on personal ads as African American biography and autobiography; black masculinities; African American homoeroticism; neo-slave narratives; parental (il)literacy in children's literature; the absence of the word "nigger" in contemporary African American children's texts; African American female sexuality; interracial intimacies in American popular music; African American womanist theory; and on the gender and race politics of African Americans and hair.

His study of heterosexism in children's texts is forthcoming in the Journal of Gay and Lesbian Issues in Education: An International Quarterly Devoted to Research, Policy and Practice. His essay on Toni Morrison’s children’s books as adult primers is forthcoming in The Journal of African American Children’s Literature. He has also completed a co-edited collection of essays on the intersection of race, gender and sexuality in personal ads. His most recent book, Once Upon a Time in a Different World: Ideas in African American Children’s Literature, is a collection of Dr. Lester's published and new essays in children's literature with scholars, critics, and lay persons responding each to a different essay, and creating a threaded conversation about identity, gender, sexuality and race. This collection is forthcoming in 2007 from Routledge/ Taylor and Francis Group, as part of the “Children’s Literature and Culture” Series.”

A much sought-after speaker and discussion facilitator, Dr. Lester has an extensive record of publications, lectures, editorships, and public interviews. Over the course of his twenty-year professional career, Dr. Lester has received numerous teaching awards and recognitions, including Outstanding Commitment to Teaching Award (1993), Distinguished Teaching Fellow Award (1996), and "Distinguished Finalist" for the Professor of the Year (2001). In 2001, Dr. Lester was named "Distinguished Public Scholar" by the Arizona Humanities Council, for his work both inside and outside the classroom. Dr. Lester was a recipient of the "Last Lecture" Award (2002), the Arizona State University Parents Association Professor of the Year (2003), and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Bebbling Family Dean's Distinguished Professorship (2004).
http://www.asu.edu/clas/english/chair.html