Wagner College is proud to host its annual Black History Month Scholar Lecture on Tuesday, Feb. 11, from 5 to 6:15 p.m. in Spiro 2. This year’s speaker is Mary Helen Washington, an esteemed scholar whose contributions to African-American literature and cultural studies have shaped the field for decades.
Washington is a distinguished university professor emerita from the University of Maryland, College Park, specializing in 20th- and 21st-century African-American literature. Throughout her career, she has held leadership roles in academia, including serving as director of black studies at the University of Detroit and as a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. Her work has been recognized with numerous accolades, such as the Carl Bode-Norman Holmes Pearson Prize for lifetime achievement in American studies and the Candace Award for outstanding Black women.
As an editor and literary scholar, Washington has amplified Black voices through her acclaimed anthologies, including “Memory of Kin: Stories About Family by Black Writers” and “Black-Eyed Susan: Classic Stories by and about Black Women.” Her book, “The Other Blacklist: The African American Literary and Cultural Left of the 1950s,” delves into the intersection of African American literature, politics, and government surveillance during the Cold War, earning Honorable Mention for the 2015 William Sanders Scarborough Prize from the Modern Language Association.
Dr. Washington’s upcoming work, “Paule Marshall: A Writer’s Life”, a biography of the celebrated novelist Paule Marshall, is set to be published by Yale University Press in February 2026.
This event is an incredible opportunity for the Wagner community to engage with Washington’s research and gain deeper insight into the evolution of African American literary and cultural narratives. Students, faculty, and community members are encouraged to attend.
