Herman Beavers has taught at Penn since 1989.  Professor Beavers has a joint appointment in the Department of Africana Studies and teaches courses in African American and American literature, including courses on Southern Modernism, 20th Century African American Poetry, as well as  "Trading Fours:  The Literatures of Jazz," which is a requisite course in the Jazz and Popular Music minor.  He also teaches a section of the introductory poetry workshop in the Creative Writing Program.  Professor Beavers also teaches (with Prof. Suzana Berger) the Arts-Based Community Service course entitled, "August Wilson and Beyond," which brings Penn students together with West Philadelphia residents to read August Wilson's Century Cycle of plays.  His most recent poems have appeared (or are about to appear) in MELUS, The Langston Hughes Colloquy, Versadelphia, Cleaver Magazine, and The American Arts Quarterly.  He has either recently published or is at work on essays on Literary Geography in the African American novel, Performativities in the Jazz Short Story, and Gnosticism in the poetry of Yusef Komunyakaa, and Biopolitics in Colson Whitehead's Underground Railroad.  His latest book Geography and the Political Imaginary in the Novels of Toni Morrison was published in 2018.  He also serves as an advisory editor at African American Review, Modern Fiction Studies, and The Black Scholar.