MMUF Fall Lecture: “The Reluctant Academic: Making a Life in the Life of the Mind”

The Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellows (MMUF) program will be hosting a Fall lecture with guest speaker Jennifer M. Wilks from the University of Texas at Austin. Professor Wilks, an MMUF alumna, will discuss her intellectual journey, development as a scholar, and the impact a program like MMUF has had on her experience. Professor Wilks is an Associate Professor of English, African and African American Studies, and Comparative Literature. She is the author of Race, Gender, and Comparative Black Modernism (Louisiana State University Press, 2008), and her essays have appeared in African American Review, Callaloo, and Modern Fiction Studies. Other teaching and research interests include Paris as a site of diasporic intellectual exchange, the transposition of the Carmen figure to African diasporic contexts, and travel narratives by African American and Caribbean writers. The Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship program provides research training, faculty mentorship, and financial support to undergraduate students interested in pursuing a Ph.D. and a career in the professoriate. Informal discussion and breakfast will be at 9:00 AM with the formal lecture beginning at 9:30 AM.