Brent Hayes Edwards

Brent Edwards has reshaped several subfields in African Diaspora Studies as an interdisciplinary scholar, theorist, editor and translator. The Practice of Diaspora (2003) reconceived the Harlem Renaissance as a transnational formation, showing deep interconnections with diaspora artists and intellectuals in Paris during the 1920’s and 30’s. He translated the massive Phantom Africa by Michel Leiris into English. He found and edited an unpublished novel by Claude McKay, and recently published his own ground-breaking book of jazz criticism and theory, Epistrophies: Jazz and the Literary Imagination (2017). A brilliant teacher and scholar, Edwards serves on many editorial boards in the field.