Courtney Thorsson
@courtneythorsson.bsky.social
2K followers 740 following 730 posts
I study, teach, and write about African American literature. **The Sisterhood: How a Network of Black Women Writers Changed American Culture** hc 2023, pb 2025 https://cup.columbia.edu/book/the-sisterhood/9780231204729 https://www.courtneythorsson.com
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Reposted by Courtney Thorsson
kevinmkruse.bsky.social
Bray is a historian at Rutgers who received death threats after landing on Turning Points USA's Professor Watchlist. As a result, he announced he was moving to Europe. And then this happened.

This kind of harassment and abuse of scholars is Charlie Kirk's legacy and it's only getting worse.
mark-bray.bsky.social
“Someone” cancelled my family’s flight out of the country at the last second.

We got our boarding passes. We checked our bags. Went through security. Then at our gate our reservation ‘disappeared.’
Reposted by Courtney Thorsson
mkirschenbaum.bsky.social
Virginia State Senate Dems just brought down fire and fury regarding the “Compact,” notifying the President and Rector that UVA would lose ALL STATE APPROPRIATIONS if it signs and cedes the University to “federal political control.” Notably, their letter directly restates points made here by @siva.
sivav.bsky.social
The “compact” for higher ed is an unserious document written by unserious people from a position of spectacular ignorance. No one should take it seriously. Sadly, my bosses are taking it seriously.

newrepublic.com/article/2013...
Why This Essay Could Cause the University of Virginia to Shut Down
How Linda McMahon’s latest “compact” would do deep and permanent harm to American higher education
newrepublic.com
Reposted by Courtney Thorsson
Reposted by Courtney Thorsson
812filmreviews.com
If you want to see Regina Hall at her absolute best, watch HONK FOR JESUS, SAVE HER SOUL. Her range is immense in it as the wife of a disgraced mega church preacher.
Reposted by Courtney Thorsson
olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social
repost this if an editor has ever saved you from yourself
blipstress.bsky.social
An actual hot take: Too many authors are afraid of editors watering down their voice or whatever and not afraid enough of editors letting you put any old slop on the page.
Reposted by Courtney Thorsson
meganabbott.bsky.social
"morbidness, longing, the picturesque" — that seems right for THE TURNOUT, on this excellent list.
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/08/b...
Dark Academia: A Starter Pack
www.nytimes.com
courtneythorsson.bsky.social
Teaching today:

Eve Ewing, "proof [dear Phillis]" (2019)
Honorée Jeffers, "How Phillis Wheatley Might Have Obtained The Approval of Eighteen Prominent White Men of Boston to Publish Her Book of Poetry" (2020)

Brooks, "Why Negro Women Leave Home" (1951) and "A Bronzeville Mother . . ." (1960)
Reposted by Courtney Thorsson
propublica.org
Records obtained by ProPublica indicate that food banks across the country were expecting more than 27 million pounds of chicken, 2 million gallons of milk, 10 million pounds of dried fruit and 60 million eggs that never arrived.
Trump Canceled 94 Million Pounds of Food Aid. Here’s What Never Arrived.
ProPublica obtained records from the Department of Agriculture that detail the millions of pounds of food, down to the number of eggs, that never reached food banks because of the administration’s cut...
projects.propublica.org
Reposted by Courtney Thorsson
drbibliomane.bsky.social
#litcrit pals, a really interesting question about the history of discipline from a graduate student here, a question that has me totally stumped:
"which journal in literary criticism was the first to implement modern peer review?" (I think he might mean blind review)
Thank you for your suggestions!
Reposted by Courtney Thorsson
dan-sinnamon.bsky.social
Stephanie's essay on D. A. Miller on Jane Austen is, alone, worth the price of admission! It's how I'm closing out my grad seminar on close reading this semester, paired with her Norton Library edited edition of Sense and Sensibility.

All to say: buy the book! It's shipping!
sinsleyh.bsky.social
Truly think this volume is great, and I can’t wait for you to read it!
Reposted by Courtney Thorsson
sinsleyh.bsky.social
Truly think this volume is great, and I can’t wait for you to read it!
Reposted by Courtney Thorsson
gipperfish.bsky.social
I edit a public scholarship site, @vaultofculture.bsky.social, that publishes work mostly on popular culture, which I founded for precisely this reason: to free scholarship from the confines of academia and provide a venue for scholars, including those outside academia. www.vaultofculture.com/about
Reposted by Courtney Thorsson
wyden.senate.gov
It was a beautiful Sunday in Portland. Farmer’s markets, the Portland Marathon, peaceful protests, and some views of Mt. Hood. This city is vibrant, peaceful, and resilient. We do not need a federal occupation, and we sure as hell don’t want one.
Reposted by Courtney Thorsson
philipleventhal.bsky.social
VIDEO: Watch an excellent conversation w/ Julius B. Fleming Jr., Jo-Ann Morgan, La Donna Forsgren, and Courtney Thorsson on the ties between Black political activism & the arts via Schomburg Conversations in Black Freedom Studies bit.ly/3KzYYL8 @courtneythorsson.bsky.social @columbiaup.bsky.social
CBFS: Black Arts, Black Spaces and Black Performance
On the spatiality of Black arts and performance, Julius B. Fleming Jr. (Black Patience: Performance, Civil Rights, and the Unfinished Project of Emancipation) will share his work on performance and the Civil Rights Movement. Jo-Ann Morgan (The Black Arts Movement and the Black Panther Party in American Visual Culture) will discuss the relationship between the Black Panther Party's visual culture and the Black Arts Movement and La Donna L. Forsgren (In Search of Our Warrior Mothers: Women Dramatists of the Black Arts Movement) will present her oral histories with women in the movement. Courtney Thorsson (The Sisterhood: How a Network of Black Women Writers Changed American Culture) will discuss how a network of Black women writers transformed American culture. Teachers are eligible to receive 1.5 CTLE credits for attending Conversations in Black Freedom Studies online programs. PANELISTS Julius B. Fleming, Jr. | Washington University in St. Louis Julius B. Fleming, Jr. earned a PhD in English, and a graduate certificate in Africana studies. Specializing in Afro-diasporic literatures and cultures, he has particular interests in performance studies, black political culture, diaspora, and colonialism, especially where they intersect with race, gender, and sexuality. Fleming is the author of Black Patience: Performance, Civil Rights, and the Unfinished Project of Emancipation (NYU Press 2022). This book reconsiders the Civil Rights Movement from the perspective of black theatre. It argues that black theatrical performance—much like television and photography—was a vital technology of civil rights activism, and a crucial site of black artistic and cultural production. La Donna L. Forsgren | The University of Notre Dame La Donna L. Forsgren is an Associate Professor of Film, Television, and Theatre with a joint appointment in the Department of Africana Studies. She is concurrent faculty in the Gender Studies Program at the University of Notre Dame. She serves as Editor for Theatre Survey. Her first book, In Search of Our Warrior Mothers: Women Dramatists of the Black Arts Movement (Northwestern UP, 2018), investigates the works and careers of Black women playwrights: Martie Evans-Charles, J.e. Franklin, Sonia Sanchez, and Barbara Ann Teer. Her second book, Sistuhs in the Struggle: An Oral History of the Black Arts Movement Theatre and Performance (Northwestern UP, 2020), is a finalist for ATHE’s Outstanding Book Award (2021). Her current book project, Black Girlhood on the Musical Theatre Stage (under contract, Oxford UP), explores Black queer feminist spectatorship and representations of Black girlhood in contemporary musical theatre. Jo-Ann Morgan | West Illinois University Jo-Ann Morgan is Professor Emeritus of African American Studies and Art History at Western Illinois University. She authored The Black Arts Movement and the Black Panther Party in American Visual Culture (Routledge, 2019) and Uncle Tom’s Cabin as Visual Culture, winner of the Seaborg Award for Civil War Scholarship in 2008. Prior to becoming a scholar of African American art and culture, Morgan graduated from the University of Wyoming in studio art (MFA 1988) and remained active as a visual artist while a doctoral student at UCLA (PhD 1997). After two decades of university teaching, in 2020 Morgan reestablished a full-time studio practice, creating stitched fabric compositions on themes related to social justice and gun violence. Courtney Thorsson | University of Oregon Courtney Thorsson teaches, studies, and writes about African American literature at the University of Oregon, where she is a Professor of English and a Faculty Fellow in the Clark Honors College. She is the author of Women’s Work: Nationalism and Contemporary African American Women's Novels and essays in Callaloo, African American Review, MELUS, Gastronomica, Contemporary Literature, Legacy, and Public Books. ABOUT CONVERSATIONS IN BLACK FREEDOM STUDIES The founding curators of this series, Professors Jeanne Theoharis (Brooklyn College/CUNY) and Komozi Woodard (Sarah Lawrence College), introduced a new paradigm that challenged the older geography, leadership, ideology, culture and chronology of Civil Rights historiography. Jeanne Theoharis continues in her role and is joined by Robyn C. Spencer-Antoine (Wayne State University) ) as co-curator. Komozi Woodard continues to advise the series from an emeritus position. Discussions take place on the first Thursday of each month. Learn more: http://www.blackfreedomstudies.org
bit.ly
courtneythorsson.bsky.social
Did you also notice that almost all books in the bookstore are blurred to the point of illegibility?
Reposted by Courtney Thorsson
janetspittler.bsky.social
And the University of Virginia faculty senate passes a resolution opposing the “Compact” sent to our interim president by the Department of Education. Lots of students in the room with signs opposing the compact (like “protect free speech”). 60 in favor; 2 opposed.
Reposted by Courtney Thorsson
Reposted by Courtney Thorsson