Associate Professor of African and African Diaspora Literature and Cultural Studies

Associate Professor of African and African Diaspora Literature and Cultural Studies

Philathia Bolton is a literary scholar whose teaching and academic leadership have spanned both university and community settings. Before joining The Africa Institute as Associate Professor of African and African Diaspora Literature and Cultural Studies, she held the role of Associate Professor of English at The University of Akron in Ohio, USA.

Bolton has served on advisory committees for the Pan-African Studies and Women’s Studies programs and as the English Department’s honors advisor. A committed public intellectual, she has taught in the Upward Bound Program, presented at book clubs for retirees, and contributed to city- and state-wide arts organizations through board membership and advocacy.

She has presented her work at major academic conferences, including the American Studies Association and the College Language Association. She participated in the 2019 Faberllull writer’s residency in Spain and was the inaugural recipient of the Toni Morrison Senior Fellowship at The Africa Institute (2023–2024). Her awards include the Purdue Research Fellowship (2009–2010), Purdue’s Outstanding Teaching Award (2006), and The University of Akron’s Employee Service Award (2015).

Bolton holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in American Studies from Purdue University–West Lafayette, and a B.A. in English from Spelman College, where she graduated summa cum laude and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

Research

Bolton’s research explores 20th-century African American literature, Black feminist thought, and the intersections of race, gender, and cultural memory in U.S. history. Her scholarship foregrounds the political legacies of the civil rights movement and examines how literary forms engage with questions of identity, power, and historical trauma.

Publications

  • Bolton, Philathia. “Forever on the Same Horizon: James Baldwin and Toni Morrison in a Hurstonian Tradition.” In Hurston in Context, edited by James Mellis and Christopher Varlack. Cambridge University Press. (forthcoming).
  • Bolton, Philathia. 2025. “Truth in Between: The Social and Political Environment of the 1851 Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio.” In Bicentennial History of Akron Anthology, edited by David Lieberth and Jon Miller. University of Akron Press. 
  • Bolton, Philathia. 2022. "Harlem Renaissance". The Literary Encyclopedia. Published September 22. 
  • Bolton, Philathia. 2021. “(En)gendering Complexities: A Look at Colorism in Toni Morrison’s Beloved and James Weldon Johnson’s Autobiography of an Ex Colored Man.” In Women's Lived Experiences of the Gender Gap: Gender Inequalities from Multiple Global Perspectives, edited by Angela Fitzgerald. Springer.
  • Bolton, Philathia, and Venetria Patton. 2020. “Audience, Gender, and the Construction of Antebellum Slave Narratives.” In A Companion to American Literature: The Blackwell Companions to Literature and Culture, edited by Susan Belasco, Theresa Strouth Gaul, Linck Johnson, and Michael Soto. John Wiley and Sons.
  • Bolton, Philathia, Cassander L. Smith, and Lee Bebout, eds. 2019. Teaching with Tension: Race, Resistance, and Reality in the Classroom. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
  • Bolton, Philathia. 2019. “The Potential of a Moment: Race Literacy and Black American Literature.” In Teaching with Tension: Race, Resistance, and Reality in the Classroom, edited by Philathia Bolton, Cassander L. Smith, and Lee Bebout. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
  • Bolton, Philathia. 2017. “The Repeating Body: Slavery’s Visual Resonance in the Contemporary by Kimberly Juanita Brown (review).” College Literature 44(1): 120–123. 
  • Bolton, Philathia. 2014. “Mama Day.” The Literary Encyclopedia. Published August 21. 
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