Acclaimed literary and cultural critic Trudier Harris will be visiting the campus from March 29 to April 2 to join the English department as a visiting scholar-in-residence.

Yolanda Manora, an associate professor of English who helped to organize Harris’ visit, said that Harris will meet with students in classes in the disciplines of English, American studies, religious studies and gender and race studies.

Manora said the opportunity to have Harris on campus is a fortunate one.

“It is our good fortune that she has retired … and can now spend time with students here,” Manora said. “The department of English is a natural place for her residency, and I am the coordinator for her visit because our areas of concentration overlap. She was also one of my professors at Emory.”

Manora said Harris has decades of experience in teaching African-American literature and folklore, where questions of gender, race, and spirituality play into the topics she approaches.

In addition, Harris will present a lecture on March 31 at 4 p.m. in Gorgas Library Room 205 titled “Nightmares of Fear: Edward P. Jones’ Representation in ‘The Known World’ of Blacks Owning Blacks During Slavery.”

Harris said that writers try to avoid the historical reality that blacks owned blacks in America.

“Writers of all sorts try not to deal with this,” Harris said. “It’s one of those taboo subjects.”

Regarding her career, Harris said she pursued teaching as a profession because of her fondness for books.

Once she graduated high school and left for Stillman College to earn her bachelor’s degree, Harris said her love for reading continued to grow.

“I stayed in the reading mode and kept going,” Harris said.

Harris taught for 30 years at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as the J. Carlyle Sitterson Professor of English. She has lectured throughout the country and overseas in Jamaica, Canada, France, Germany, Poland, Spain, Italy, England, Northern Ireland and South Africa.

“She is very much an international scholar,” Manora said.

Harris said that she hopes to use her residency to help students approach questions they formerly neglected.

Harris said that many students will feel surprised with the content that she has to deliver about this aspect of black history in America.

“A lot of students will be surprised,” Harris said. “This topic is not something that is explored as much because writers don’t like to deal with it.”