The Comparative Literature Luncheon presents Cedric R. Tolliver (University of Oklahoma), on “Breaking Barriers, Tearing Down Walls: The Cold War Racial Progress Narrative in the Autobiographical Writing of Carl Rowan.”

Cedric R. Tolliver is the M. H. Abrams Fellow at the National Humanities Center and associate professor of English at the University of Oklahoma, where he works at the intersection of Africana literary and culture studies and literary history. His book, Of Vagabonds and Fellow Travelers: African Diaspora Literary Culture and the Cultural Cold War (University of Michigan Press 2019), was a 2020 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title. He is currently at work on a second book manuscript, tentatively titled Spook(ed) that considers the relationship of African American travel writing and spy thrillers to the national security state apparatus.