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Biography

Donna Akiba Harper has been a Faculty Member Since 1987 and is a Professor Emerita of English.

An internationally recognized Langston Hughes scholar, Donna Akiba Sullivan Harper has taught English at ÌÇÐÄ´«Ã½ since 1987 and served as Dean of Undergraduate Studies from January of 2003 to December of 2004.

She is currently a professor of English teaching composition and African-American literature. She is the author of the only book-length study of Hughes’s celebrated Jesse B. Semple stories, Not So Simple: The “Simple” Stories by Langston Hughes (1995). She has also edited four volumes of short fiction by Hughes. Since 1998 Harper has been the campus coordinator for the UNCF-Mellon Program at ÌÇÐÄ´«Ã½. She has mentored several students, of whom two have completed the Ph.D. and others are in graduate study.

She has lectured in China, Turkey, and throughout the United States on Langston Hughes and is the author of numerous articles and book reviews. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Oberlin College, she earned her Master of Arts degree and Ph.D. from Emory University as a Danforth Graduate Fellow.Harper's awards and recognition include the Faculty Award in African-American Literature, 1999, in recognition of exemplary scholarship and dedication to excellence at ÌÇÐÄ´«Ã½; The Langston Hughes Prize for Excellence in Literature and Vision (1998); the ÌÇÐÄ´«Ã½ 1995 Presidential Faculty Award for Scholarly Achievement; and the 1991 Distinguished Teacher Award, funded by the Sears-Roebuck Foundation Teaching Excellence and Campus Leadership Award Program.

Harper served as the College Language Association (CLA) vice president from 2016 - 2018 and as president from 2018 - 2020. Harper is also a founding member and past president of the Langston Hughes Society and a charter member of the Toni Morrison Society.

Education

• Ph.D., M.A., Emory University

• B.A., Oberlin College

• Summer Study (no degree earned), Hampton University

Courses Taught

Langston Hughes Seminar; Seminal Writers in the African American Tradition; Contemporary African American Writers; 20th Century African American Writers; Early African American Writers; First Year Composition; The Novels of Pearl Cleage, Tina McElroy Ansa, and Tayari Jones

Research Interests

20th and 21st Century African American Literature, especially Langston Hughes, Toni Morrison, Zora Neale Hurston, Alice Walker, and Pearl Cleage

Select Publications

The Later Simple Stories (The Collected Works of Langston Hughes, Volume 8), edited and with an introduction by Donna Akiba Sullivan Harper. Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 2002. ISBN: 0-8262-1409-6

The Early Simple Stories (The Collected Works of Langston Hughes, Volume 7), edited and with an introduction by Donna Akiba Sullivan Harper. Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 2002. ISBN: 0-8262-1370-7

Langston Hughes Short Stories, edited by Akiba Sullivan Harper. Introduction by Arnold Rampersad. New York: Hill & Wang, 1996.

ISBN: 978-0-8090-1603-7 or ISBN-10: 0-8090-1603-6

Not So Simple: The "Simple" Stories by Langston Hughes. Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 1995. ISBN 0-8262-0980-7.
This remains the only book-length study of Hughes’s Simple.


The Return of Simple, edited by Akiba Sullivan Harper. Introduction by Arnold Rampersad. New York: Hill & Wang, (division of Farrar, Straus, & Giroux), 1994.

ISBN: 978-0-8090-1582-5 or ISBN-10: 0-8090-1582-X