William Cook

Professor of English and African American Studies
Israel Evans Professor of Oratory and Belles Lettres

210 Sanborn House

william.w.cook@dartmouth.edu

My primary interests are in American poetry and drama, in African American literature and in oratory and oral interpretation. My current project deals with the relationship of African American literature to the rhetoric, thematics and narrative devices of classical literature. A second project is concerned with continuity and construction of African American oratory and preaching; their function as shaping structures for African American literature and discourse.

Courses

• English 40: American Poetry to 1914
• English 43: Early Black American Literature
• English 50: American and British Poetry Since 1914
• English 47: American Drama
• AAAS 36: The Great Migration
• COLT 47: African American Literature and the Classical Tradition

Selected Publications

• "Hudson Hornet and Other Poems," Ishmael Reed Publications, 1989.
• "The Black Arts Poets," in Jay Parini, ed., The Columbia History of American Poetry, 1993
• "Spiritual; Poems by William W. Cook," Ishmael Reed Publications, 1999.
• "The New Negro Renaissance," in Neil Roberts, ed., Blackwell's Companion to Twentieth Century Poetry, 2001.
• "Members and Lames: The Theater of August Wilson," in Paul Carter Harrison, ed., Black Theater: Ritual Performance in the African Diaspora, 2002.