Courtney Thorsson
Statement
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. Her first book Women’s Work: Nationalism and Contemporary African American Women's Novels argues that Toni Cade Bambara, Paule Marshall, Gloria Naylor, Ntozake Shange, and Toni Morrison reclaim and revise Black cultural nationalism in their novels of the 1980s and 90s. Her writing has appeared in publications including Callaloo; African American Review; MELUS; Gastronomica; Contemporary Literature; Legacy; and Public Books. Her most recent book, The Sisterhood: How a Network of Black Women Writers Changed American Culture tells the story of how a remarkable community of Black women writers and intellectuals transformed political, literary, and academic cultures. The Sisterhood received honorable mention for the 2024 William Sanders Scarborough Prize from the Modern Language Association, was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award, and was a 2025 selection for the Literary Freedom Project's One Book One Bronx. Professor Thorsson's awards include a 2018-19 Public Scholar Award from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the 2026 Herman Award for Specialized Pedagogy from the University of Oregon.
Research
Books
- The Sisterhood: How a Network of Black Women Writers Changed American Culture, (Columbia University Press, hardcover November 2023, paperback March 2025; Tantor, audiobook February 2026)
- Women's Work: Nationalism and Contemporary African American Women's Novels (University of Virginia Press, 2013)
Scholarly Essays
- "Vertamae Grosvenor's Revolutionary Recipes." MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literature of The United States, May 2025.
- "The Chaneysville Incident and The Research Narrative in Contemporary African American Literature." Studies in the Novel. 55.1 (Spring 2023): 17-36.
- "'They could be killing kids forever!': The Atlanta Child Murders in African American Literature." African American Review. 53.4 (Winter 2020): 315-332.
- "Foodways in Contemporary African American Poetry: Harryette Mullen and Evie Shockley." Contemporary Literature. 57.2 (Summer 2016): 184-215.
- Co-author, "Black Women's Food Work as Critical Space." Gastronomica 15.4 (Winter 2015): 34-49.
- "Gwendolyn Brooks's Black Aesthetic of the Domestic," MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States 40.1 (2015): 149-76.
- "James Baldwin and Black Women's Fiction." African American Review 46.4. (2013): 615-31.
Book Chapters
- "The Sisterhood and Its Legacies." Cambridge History of African American Poetry edited by Keith Leonard. Cambridge University Press, 2026. 423-440.
- "Kitchen, Nation, Diaspora: Ntozake Shange's African American Foodways." Foodscapes: Food, Space, and Place in a Global Society edited by Carlnita Greene. Peter Lang, 2018: 199-222.
Book Reviews
- Review of Open Admissions: The Poetics and Pedagogy of Toni Cade Bambara, June Jordan, Audre Lorde, and Adrienne Rich in the Era of Free College (2024) by Danica Savonick. American Literary History, February 2026.
- Review of From Slave Cabins to the White House: Homemade Citizenship in African American Culture by Koritha Mitchell. Legacy 38.1-2 (2021): 163-65.
- "Fairy Tales of Race and Nation," Review of Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi. Public Books, April 9, 2019.
Selected Other Writing
- Blog post, "Beyond the Famous Few: Five Women Who Shaped Black History and Literature," Columbia University Press, February 2024.
- Book excerpt, "How Michele Wallace Sought Black Women's Liberation Through Art: Courtney Thorsson on the Emergence of a Black Feminist Literary Culture in America," LitHub, 2023.
- "The Sisterhood, 1977 Photograph," Remarkable Receptions podcast, August 2022. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.
- "Toni Morrison's Beloved," Remarkable Receptions podcast, June 2022. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher.
Selected talks, panels, and interviews
- "Black Arts, Black Spaces, and Black Performance," Conversations in Black Freedom Studies, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, October 2025.
- Left of Black episode, "The Sisterhood" of Black Feminist Writers Dr. Courtney Thorsson and Mark Anthony Neal, June 2024.
- Interview by N'Kosi Oates, May 2024. Listen on New Books Network, Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
- "Making Toni Morrison," March 2024. Listen on WBEZ Chicago, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.
- "Black Women's Collectives," panel, discussion, and book signing with Ethel Morgan Smith, Virginia Festival of the Book. Charlottesville, VA, March 2024.
- "Celebrating 40 Years of the History of Black Writing & Black Women's Writing," a conversation with Ayesha Hardison, Angelyn Mitchell, and Danille Taylor, November 2023.
- Interview by DuEwa Frazier, Nerdacity Podcast, March 2024. Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
- Interview by Jeff O'Neal, First Edition Podcast, Book Riot. November 2023.
- Panel discussion with Mecca Jamilah Sullivan and Patricia Spears Jones, "Creation Is Everything You Do: Shange, The Sisterhood, and Black Collectivity," Barnard College, March 2021.
- "The Musical History of Jelly," podcast episode with Psyche Williams Prof. Psyche-Wiliams Forson and host Dan Pashman, The Sporkful. August 2019.