Who Am I? . . .
Carmen Kynard, Ph.D.

I am an associate professor of English and Gender Studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York. I also teach in the departments of English, Urban Education, and Critical Psychology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

My commitment to teaching as part of my professional identity and research represents many years of experience: founding high school teacher for one of the Coalition of Essential Schools in Bronx, New York; on-site school consultant and summer institute leader for the New York City Writing Project; curriculum consultant and designer for the African Diaspora Research Institute and Caribbean Cultural Center in New York; instructional coordinator for the Center for Black Literature (CBL) at Medgar Evers College; facilitator for CBL’s Literature-to-Life and arts programs for Brooklyn high schools; instructional coordinator for pre-college workshops and dual enrollment courses at Medgar Evers College aimed at area Brooklyn high school students; curriculum designer and staff developer for a Community Learning Center Grant in Harlem, New York; and more.  Each of these experiences has situated my work in literacy education in very different ways and continues to shape my ongoing understandings of the multiple sites of intervention where such work must occur. 

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I have published in Harvard Educational Review, Changing English, College Composition and Communication, College English, Computers and Composition, Reading Research Quarterly and more. My first book, Vernacular Insurrections: Race, Black Protest, and the New Century in Composition-Literacy Studies (SUNY Press, 2013) makes Black Freedom a 21st century literacy movement and won the 2015 James Britton Award from the Conference on English Education.  I trace and challenge my ideas and ideals about research and teaching at my website, “Education, Liberation, and the Black Radical Tradition” (http://carmenkynard.org). ​

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​To read about more of my work and my digital projects, click here.

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Educational Background


Ph.D., New York University, 2005 (English Education)

B.A., Stanford University, 1993 (Feminist Studies and Afro-American Studies)