Professor of English

• Office: Sitterly House 206
• Campus Extension: 3287
• Email: gsmithwr@drew.edu

Arrived at Drew: 1983 

Areas of Specialization: 19th century American literature, Women's literature, African American literature, Ethnic-American literature. 

Courses taught regularly: Engl. 23/The American Tradition in Literature, 1800-1865; Engl. 24/American Lit. between the Wars, 1865-1910; Engl. 123 and Engl. 124 (Advanced Studies in American Lit.); Undergraduate and graduate seminars: African American Women's Literature, Ethnic American Women's Autobiography; Engl. 32/Women and Literature; Engl. 132/Women's Literary Tradition; Engl. 35/African American Literature.

Teaching award:  Caspersen School of Graduate Studies Will Herberg Distinguished Professor Award, 2002. 

Co-curricular activities: Faculty Advisor for the Umoja House, theme house; Chair of the Social Responsibility Committee (University Senate);  Member of the Joint Affirmative Action Committee; Member of the American/African American Studies Committee.

Recent Publications:

"Community M(o)ther: The Paradox of Toni Morrison's Sula" in Africana: An Introduction and Study. Edited by Leonard Bethel.  (Kendall/Hunt, 1999)

"In Spite of the Klan: Ghosts in the Fiction of Black Women Writers" in Haunting the House of Fiction: Feminist Perspectives on Ghost Stories by American Women Writers, ed. Lynette Carpenter and Wendy K. Kolmar (University of Tennessee Press, 1991).

"Revision as Collaboration: Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God as Source for Alice Walker's The Color Purple" (Sage, 1987).

Articles in progress: "Slave Women's Narratives: The Teaching Imperative," and "The Conundrum of Color in Nella Larsen's Passing"

On teaching:  "Teaching is an art form that requires constant and diligent practice, and in this sense one's teaching is always evolving. Good teaching is demanding but extremely rewarding work that places students' ideas at the center of academic discourse. This passage from Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God -- one of my favorite books - describes what I feel is the central element in an exciting literature class: "When the people [read "students"] sat around on the porch [read "in the class"] and passed around the pictures of their thoughts for the others to look at and see, it was nice. The fact that the thought pictures were always crayon enlargements of life made it even nicer to listen to."