University of Michigan - Flint

Dr. Ernest N. Emenyonu, Professor and Chair, Department of Africana Studies, University of Michigan-Flint is a specialist in African Literature.

Educated at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka; Teachers College, Columbia University, New York; London University, England; and the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Professor Emenyonu holds a Ph.D. in African Literature, a Masters Degree in the Teaching of English as a Foreign / Second Language and a Bachelors Degree with First Class Honors in English / Education.

Professor Emenyonu has published widely on African Literature and the English Language in learned journals in Africa, Europe, India and the United States with a spread of more than a dozen books and over sixty articles in refereed journals all over the world. His articles have appeared in African Literature Today, Research in African Literatures, Journal of Commonwealth Literature, Modern Language Journal, Studies in Black Literature, The Literary Criterion, Scandinavian Journal of Development Alternatives, Kunapipi, Ufahamu, TESOL, Bashiru, Twentieth Century Literary Criticism, Dictionary of Literary Biography: 20^th Century Caribbean and Black African Writers, Okike, Encyclopedia of African Literature (Routledge, 2003), Worldview, The World and I, The Literary Griot, Bookbird, Encyclopedia of the Novel, The Conch, Review of Comparative Literature, Umoja, Africa Report, Pan- African Journal, Callaloo, etc.

His books include Cyprian Ekwensi (1974), The Rise of the Igbo Novel (1978), African Literature for Schools and Colleges (1985), The Essential Ekwensi (1987), Studies on the Nigerian Novel (1991), Trends in Literature and Language Studies in West Africa (1994), Ideas and Challenges in Nigerian Education (1994), Goatskin Bags and Wisdom: New Critical Perspectives on African Literature (2000), A Good Shepherd: A Biography of The Most Rev. Dr. Benjamin C. Nwankiti (2003), Emerging Perspectives On Chinua Achebe Vol.1: Omenka, the Master Artist: Critical Perspectives on Achebe’s Fiction (2004), Emerging Perspectives On Chinua Achebe, Vol.2 : Isinka, the Artistic Purpose: Chinua Achebe and the Theory of African Literature (2004).

     For the past two years I have chosen to teach my courses online.  I teach Improving Reading in Middle and Secondary Schools,  Africana Studies for Teachers, and Women Writers of the African World.  I have been a lecturer for over thirty years, first in the Peace Corps in Kenya, then at Virginia State University, Fairview High in Boulder (where I was hired to teach Black Literature), and for twenty years in Nigeria.  Returning to the US in 1995, my experiences were varied.  The last institution I taught at before moving to Flint was St. Augustine’s College in Raleigh, NC.

     My qualifications include a BA from Oberlin College, Ohio;  an MA from the University of  Wisconsin, Madison;  and EdS from the University of Colorado, Boulder;  and a PhD from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

     An educator for forty-one years, former co-owner and editor of The Flint Editorial newspaper, former columnist for The Flint Spokesman newspaper, founder of The Black Arts Festival in the Beecher School District, and author of A History of Blacks in Michigan that was published by the Mott Foundation. I taught black history in the Beecher School District for thirty-three (33) years, and was the principal of Beecher Middle/High School for three years.  In addition, I have taught at Baker College, Jordan College, Delta College, and The University of Michigan-Flint.  I also taught a course for three years in the Thumb Correction facility in Lapeer, and often give lectures at various events in the Flint Community and surrounding areas each year.  Presently, I am heading The Kemet Study Group at Pages Bookstore. 

     I am a graduate of Knoxville College and have done graduate work at Wayne State University, The University of Michigan, Michigan State University, and Eastern Michigan University.  I have a Masters Degree from Eastern Michigan University and have done post-graduate work at Michigan State, The University of Michigan, and Eastern Michigan University.  Over the last two years, I have done field studies on the African continent in Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Senegal, and The Gambia.  I also did field work in Egypt, in 1984.  Presently, I am teaching two courses at The University of Michigan-Flint in the Department of Africana Studies, AFA 101 and AFA 220.