Richard A. Courage

Richard A. Courage is a Professor of English at Westchester Community College and also Distinguished Teaching Professor of the State University of New York. He is co-author with the late Robert Bone of The Muse in Bronzeville: African American Creative Expression in Chicago, 1932-1950 (Rutgers University Press 2011), which has won awards from the Illinois State Historical Society, the Hyde Park Historical Society, and the Westchester Library Association. He has published reviews and articles on African American narrative and visual arts, new media, and the teaching of writing in various scholarly collections and journals. His research on the cultural history of Black Chicago has been supported by grants and fellowships from the American Philosophical Society, National Endowment for the Humanities, Black Metropolis Research Consortium, and the Vivian G. Harsh Society. He and historian Christopher Robert Reed are currently editing an essay collection called Root, Branch and Blossom: Social Origins of Chicago’s New Negro Artists and Intellectuals (under contract with University of Illinois Press). For more information: www.richardacourage.com .