Donavan L. Ramon, who earned his doctorate in African American literature from Rutgers University, is an assistant professor of English at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and the Allen and Joan Bildner Visiting Scholar at Rutgers University. A specialist in African American and African diasporic literatures, he teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses in these fields. He has published articles on Philip Roth and Alice Dunbar-Nelson and, most recently, guest edited a special double issue of the South Atlantic Review on the ninetieth anniversary of Nella Larsen's Passing. His first book, Striking Features: Psychoanalysis and Racial Passing Narratives, was published by Mercer University Press in 2024. It explores the psychoanalytic motivations for jumping the color line in African American literature.
Abstract: The Inner African: Blacks, Jews, and the Problem of the Color Line
