Jennifer Hayes
Associate Professor听
Department of Languages, Literature and Philosophy
301-B Elliot
963-5716
jhayes17@tnstate.edu
Education
Ph.D., Middle 91制片厂
MA,听91制片厂
BA,听University of Tennessee
BIO
Dr. Jennifer L. Hayes was born and raised in Nashville Tennessee and earned her Master鈥檚 from TSU. As a graduate student at TSU, the staff, faculty, and alumni all instilled in her the value of service. Now as a professor, she takes pleasure in continuing that legacy by encouraging students to use their education to contribute to the lives of others. Dr. Hayes teaches African American Literature and Composition. Her research interests include 20th and 21st century African American Literature, Black Feminist Criticism, and Contemporary Drama. Her agenda as a professor of literature and composition courses is to equip students with skills to critically engage diversity within and outside the classroom. Her current research focuses on contemporary playwright Kia Corthron鈥檚 political use of disability. Dr. Hayes interprets Corthron鈥檚 thematic usage of disability as a continuation of the 鈥渂lind seer鈥� motif in Greek drama, where individuals with disabilities are often privileged with a capacity to 鈥渟ee鈥� beyond the reality of their experience.
Book Manuscripts
Understanding Lynn Nottage. University of South Carolina Press, 2025.
Teaching African American Literature through Experiential Praxis -African American Writers in Europe.听听Palgrave MacMillan, 2020.
Selected Academic and/or Popular Press Publications
鈥淢aking Connections: Black Women鈥檚 Popular Fiction and the Cannon.鈥� Review of Bragg, Beauty.听 Reading Contemporary African American Literature: Black Women鈥檚 Popular Fiction, Post-Civil Rights Experience, and the African American Canon. CLA. Spring 2016. Print.
A Life鈥檚 Work. 10 minute play. Inspired by Melba Liston/365 women a year a playwriting Project. Fall 2015.
鈥淐horal Aesthetics in Lynn Nottage鈥檚 Mud, River, Stone.鈥� Lynn Nottage Anthology. Ed. Jocelyn听 Buckner. Routledge, 2015. Print. (Forthcoming)
"Cornelius Eady.鈥� Contemporary Poets Dictionary Literary Biographies. 2013. ed. Print.
鈥淢oving Forward: Cultural Knowledge, Identity Politics, and the Academy.鈥� Rev. of The Reorder of Things. by Roderick A. Ferguson and Object Lessons by Robyn Weigman.听听 WSQ. Fall 2013. Print.
Rev. of The Exile of Britney Spears: A Tale of 21st Century Consumption. by Christopher R. Smith.听 Studies in Popular Culture. 34.1(2011): 149-152. Print.
鈥淲hat interests you Ms. Lady?鈥� Reflection. Bfemlit. 2012. Web.
Selected Conference Presentations
鈥淎 Rev Record: Revision and Memory in Lynn Nottage鈥檚 Crumbs From the Table of Joy.鈥� CLA. March 2014.
鈥溾�業 Can Transform Ya鈥�: Earthseed as Foundation for Welcoming New Complicated Identities in Octavia E. Butler鈥檚 Parable of the Sower鈥� SAMLA. November 2012.
听鈥�In the Blood Origins of the Welfare Mother/Queen Myth.鈥� PCAS. September 2012.
鈥淪ubverting Biblical Myths in Gloria Naylor's Bailey's Caf茅." MTSU EGSO. September 2011.
鈥淭he Tales We Tell: Legendary Romances in Katherine Anne Porter鈥檚 Old Mortality, Zora Neale听 Hurston鈥檚 Their Eyes Were Watching God.鈥� PCA. April 2011.
Classes Taught at TSU
Freshmen English I and II, Black Arts and Lit, Black Lit Short Story and Novel, Intro to Women's Studies
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August 2011
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Languages, Literature, and Philosophy