Lecture Series: Phillis Weatley and the Black American Revolution

Katy Chiles, Associate Professor of English and Affiliate Faculty in Africana Studies at the University of Tennessee, will be our guest lecturer on Thursday, November 12 at 6 p.m. She will discuss Phillis Wheatley, an American writer who is considered the first African American author of a published book of poetry.
Wheatley is considered a pioneering literary figure. She was a Black poet enslaved in Boston during the American Revolution. This talk discusses how her poetry takes up the themes of liberty, freedom, and slavery and how she started the African American literary tradition.
Katy Chiles’ first book, "Transformable Race: Surprising Metamorphoses in the Literatures of Early America" was published by Oxford University Press, and her scholarship has been funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Antiquarian Society. With Professor Cassander Smith (University of Alabama), she is Co-Editor of "Early American Literature".
Join us for this enlightening edition of our lecture series!