Comparative Literature Program

Dr. Patterson is an assistant professor of English at Georgetown University, and a core faculty member of the African American Studies Program. He recently finished his first book project, Exodus Politics?: Civil Rights and Leadership African American Literature and Culture. In Exodus Politics?:, Patterson argues that redemptive patriarchal leadership is paradoxical, that it functions to undermine and erode the goals of what civil rights historians refer to as a “long Civil Rights Movement” and, by extension, civil rights leadership, by narrowly conceptualizing the civil rights project in terms of “racial rights” and failing to empower communities to be self-sufficient and self-sustainable in the absence of the redemptive, messianic male leader. He also has begun to work on a second book project, Between Resistance and Reinscription: Black Popular Culture, Trauma, and Healing. Dr. Patterson has published articles on W.E.B. Dubois, Toni Morrison, African American Women’s Writing, and Tyler Perry’s films.