She earned her B.A. in English and American Studies at U.C.L.A. and her doctorate in English at Cornell University. Her research is primarily focused on black female representation in mid-nineteenth to early twentieth American literature and visual culture. She is the author of the Portraits of the New Negro Woman: Visual and Literary Culture in the Harlem Renaissance (Rutgers University Press, 2007). Additional publications include numerous journal articles, short stories, and poems. Her most recent work includes the editing and annotating of a new edition of Jessie Redmon Fauset’s last novel Comedy: American Style (Rutgers University Press, 2009).