Specific interests include African American feminist thought and theory, African American women’s literature, African American literary history, and especially African American cultural interactions with legal discourse. Her publications includeRace, Theft and Ethics: Property Matters in African American Literature (LSU, 2007), The Cambridge Introduction to Zora Neale Hurston (Cambridge, 2008), the two co-edited collections: James Baldwin and Toni Morrison: Comparative Critical and Theoretical Essays (Palgrave, 2006) and New Essays on the African American Novel (Palgrave, 2008). She has also published numerous essays, reviews, and articles in journals, essay collections, and reference volumes. She is currently co-editing “Justice Unveiled: African American Culture and Legal Discourse.”