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Fac/Staff profile

Deborah Smith
Pollard
Ph.D.

Chair, Department of Literature, Philosophy and the Arts; Professor of English Literature and Humanities
Deborah Smith-Pollard
  • College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters
  • Literature, Philosophy, and the Arts
debpoll@umich.edu
313-593-5213
3081 CASL Building
4901 Evergreen Rd
Dearborn, MI 48128
Tuesday and Thursday 12:30pm-1:30pm or by appointment
Curriculum Vitae

Teaching Areas:

  • African & African American Studies
  • English
  • Humanities
  • Women's & Gender Studies

Research Areas:

  • African-American Identity and Literature
  • African-American Sacred Music

Biography and Education

Education

Ph.D. Michigan State University; M.A.T. Wayne State University; B.A. Michigan State University.

Current Research

"The Impact and Legacy of Edwin Hawkins and the Game-Changing Gospel Song `Oh Happy Day'"

Teaching and Research

Selected Publications

Book
When the Church Becomes Your Party: Contemporary Gospel Music. Detroit: Wayne State UP, May, 2008. 240 pp.

Book Chapters and Articles in Referred Journals

"`Miss December, You Remember, I Bought You Twice:' Sex and the Contemporary Gospel Song." Forthcoming. Black Music Research Journal.

"‘Praise Is What We Do.’" Readings in African American Church Music and Worship, James Abbington, editor. Chicago: GIA Publications. June 2014: 491-519.

"‘Praise Is What We Do’: The Rise of Praise and Worship Music in the Black Church in the US.” In Christian Congregational Music - Performance, Identity and Experience. Farnham: Ashgate, 2013. 

“The Women Have on All Their Clothes: Reading the Texts of Holy Hip Hop.” In Mamadou Diouf and Ifeoma Nwankwo, ed. Rhythms of the Afro-Atlantic World: Rituals and Remembrances.  University of Michigan Press:  2010: 55-78.

"Motherlove, Initiation, Poverty, and Pride: Teaching "Getting the Facts of Life" by Paulette Childress White and "The Sky Is Gray" by Ernest Gaines." The CEA Forum Winter/Spring 2009: 38.1.  Published online.

“That Text, That Timbre: Introducing Gospel Announcer Edna Tatum.” Linda F. Williams and Eileen Hayes, eds., Black Women and Music: More than the Blues. University of Illinois, 2007: 93-118. 

 “Edna Tatum: Gospel Announcer and Narrator in Performance.” Womanist Research & Theory3.2/4.1 (Spring/Summer 2001/2002): 34-45.

“Gospel Announcers (Disc Jockeys): What They Do and Why It Matters.” Arkansas Review: A Journal of Delta Studies 31.2 (August 2000): 87-101.

“The Phenomenon Known as the Gospel Musical Stage Play.” CEA Critic 62.3 (Summer 2000): 1-17.

“African American Holyground in Another Good Loving Blues.” CLA Journal 44.1 (Sept. 2000): 65-87.

Encyclopedia Entries
Six entries—James Cleveland, Vanessa Bell Armstrong, Donald Lawrence, Andrae Crouch, Ben Tankard, and Take 6—for the Grove Dictionary of American Music. Oxford: Oxford UP: 2013. 

History

Member for
3 years 2 months
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