Dr. Deborah H.
Barnes grew up in Greensboro, NC amid the dynamic social changes of
the Civil Rights Movement. As a result, concerns for equality,
social transformation, and access have dominated her personal and
professional life. After integrating the three public schools she
attended (Gillespie Park Elementary, Kiser Jr. High, and Page High
School), she was among the first wave of African Americans recruited
to attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. After two
years, however, she opted to attend Tuskegee Institute where she
graduated in 1978 with honors. Upon graduation she married and in
1980 gave birth to her only son, Geoffrey.
In 1987 she earned
her MA in African American literature from NC A&T State University
where she was named graduate student of the year (1987). She earned
the Ph.D. in English from Howard University in 1992 where she had
been one of the first two graduate students in the Humanities to be
selected as a Dorothy Danforth Compton Fellow. Specializing in
contemporary black women writers, she wrote her dissertation on Toni
Morrison and Gloria Naylor. Her scholarly publications have focused
primarily on the works of Toni Morrison, but also include Richard
Wright, Langston Hughes, Sterling Brown, and Arthur P. Davis.
In 1992, Barnes
accepted a faculty position in the English Department at Gettysburg
College (PA) where, in 1999, she became the first African American
to be awarded tenure by the college. Perennially invested in
interdisciplinary studies, she also taught courses in African
American Studies, Women’s Studies, Interdisciplinary Studies, and
Civil War Era Studies programs as well. She served as Coordinator
for African American Studies in 2001 and served in varying
capacities to advance and improve cultural diversity at the College,
perhaps most notably as Chair of the President’s Commission for
Racial and Ethnic Diversity. In 2001 she was awarded a year-long
sabbatical leave to do research on discourses or race that pertained
to lynching.
In 2003, Barnes was
appointed Director of the Lewis Walker Institute for the Study of
Race and Ethnic Relations and Associate Professor of Africana
Studies (with tenure) at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo,
MI. In this capacity she was able to close the gap between pedagogy
and social transformation as well as the gap between the classroom
and the community. As Director, she worked to develop
culturally-centered, culturally astute, innovative curricula and
programming that would engage students, faculty, and area citizens
concerning matter of race, culture, and ethnic relations. She served
as Chair of the Summit on Diversity (2004-2006), a county-wide
initiative among non-profit, for profit, religious, educational,
governmental entities that endeavored to ensure racial equity in
Education, Employment, and Housing. She positively influenced local
youth by co-founding of a Rights of Passage program for young girls
and creating exhibits and supporting curricula for public schools
that focused on subjects of Slavery, Jim Crow Segregation, lynching,
and contemporary forms of child slavery.
At WMU Barnes was
able to hone her research interests in lynching to lynching
narratives—a melodramatic, voyeuristic accounting of a specific
lynching written and/or published by a lynching participant,
spectator, sympathizer, apologist, or victim. Barnes believes that
published lynching accounts are worthy of closer study for the
unique aperture they provide into American culture at the end of the
nineteenth century and during the first half of the twentieth
century. Statistics show that Blacks were the predominant victims of
Lynch law, however, lynching narratives reveal that members of every
race and ethnicity were illegally executed, including Native
Americans, Mexicans, Chinese, Hawaiians, Jews, Italians, and perhaps
most ironically, white women. This research project will show that
traditional dichotomies of race obscure the realities of racial
terrorism and prejudice as they were (and are) practiced in the
United States.
Serving as Interim
Associate Dean of University Studies is perhaps the highlight of
Barnes’ pedagogical career thus far. She was honored to be asked to
help facilitate the transition from the traditional distribution
model of general education to an interdisciplinary core curriculum.
She believes that helping students develop skills in critical
thinking, collaboration, problem solving, and ethical and moral
reasoning will aptly prepare them for the challenges of professional
life in the 21st Century. In this capacity, she has been
responsible for shaping two (of four) foundation curricula:
Basic/Critical Writing and the African American Experience and for
bringing into being the division of University Studies.
Publications
§
“Keeper of the Keys: Narrative Constructions of Race and
Racelessness in Toni Morrison’s Paradise and ‘Recitatif.’”
Journal of Intergroup Relations. (32.4) Winter 2005/2006
§
“The
Elephant and the Race Problem”: Sterling A. Brown and Arthur P.
Davis as Cultural Conservators.” Callaloo Winter 1998.
§
“The
Bottom of Heaven: Myth, Metaphor, and Memory in Toni Morrison’s
Reconstructed South.” Studies in the Literary Imagination
Fall 1998.
§
“Movin’ on Up: The Madness of Migration in Toni Morrison’s Jazz.”
Toni Morrison, Selected Criticism of Contexts and Texts. Ed.
David L. Middleton. Garland P, 1997.
§
“Harriet Tubman,” The Oxford Companion to African American
Literature. New York: Oxford UP, 1996.
§
“Arthur A. Schomburg” The Oxford Companion to African American
Literature. New York: Oxford UP, 1996.
§
“I’d
Rather Be a Lamppost in Chicago: Richard Wright and the Chicago
Renaissance.” Langston Hughes Review Spring/Fall 1996.
§
Culture, Conduct, and Cosmology in Toni Morrison’s and Gloria Naylor’s
Novels of (Re)acculturation.
Diss. Howard U, 1992.
Current Scholarly Projects
§
“Beware the Furrow of His Brow: The Cultural Logic of Black Lynch
Mobs.” (ms)
§
With a Grain of Salt: the Periodical Essays of Arthur P. Davis
(ms
in process)
§
“Treading Our Path Through the Blood of the Slaughtered: Lynching
and the African American Sermonic Tradition”
§
Carnivals of Blood: Lynching as Narrative, Culture, and History
(ms in
process.)
Notable
Professional Development Opportunities
§
Bridges 2007 Academic Leadership Program for Women, September 14 –
November 17, 2007,Chapel Hill, NC
§
National
Academy of Sciences Leadership Summit to Effect Change in Teaching
and Learning
October 3-5, 2006
§
AAHE
Black Caucus, Leadership and Mentoring Institute, July 6-12. 2003.
§
Oxford Roundtable, Oxford, England July 2002.
Fellowships, Grants, Awards
§
Phi
Kappa Phi National Honor Society. 2006. NC A&T State University
§
President’s Research Fellowship. 2002. Gettysburg College,
Gettysburg, PA
§
Provost’s Research Grant. 2002. Gettysburg College, Gettysburg, PA
§
Sabbatical leave. 2002-2003. Gettysburg College, Gettysburg PA
§
Provost’s Research Grant. (Summer 1997). Gettysburg College,
Gettysburg, PA
§
Pre-tenure Sabbatical leave. Fall 1996. Gettysburg College,
Gettysburg PA
§
National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend. “The Elephant
and the Race Problem: Reviving Arthur P Davis’s ‘With a Grain of
Salt’ Essays.” Summer, 1994
§
National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Research Fellow.
“Slave Narratives in the African American Literary Tradition".
The University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas. Summer 1993
§
Dorothy Danforth Compton National Fellow. 1990-1992.
§
All-American Scholar. 1990-1991. Howard University, Washington, D.C.
§
University Graduate Assistantship. August 1989-January 1990. Howard
University, Washington, D.C.
§
Sigma
Tau Delta National English Honor Society, Inducted 1987. NC A&T
State University, Greensboro, North Carolina
§
Graduate Student of the Year. 1987. NC A&T State University,
Greensboro, North Carolina. Professional Development