Eric Darnell Pritchard
- Faculty Position
- Assistant Professor
- Contact
- TBA
- [Full directory info]
Bio / Academic Interests
Eric Darnell Pritchard (PhD, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2008) is Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Writing. He is also a faculty affiliate in the department of English, the John L. Warfield Center for African and African-American Studies and the Center for Women's and Gender Studies. He studied English-Liberal Arts at Lincoln University and literacy, rhetoric, critical theory and African-American gender and sexuality studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Professor Pritchard's research and teaching interests include literacy, cultural rhetoric, qualitative research methods, community-based writing, critical pedagogy, African-American and LGBTQ literature, queer of color theory, black feminist theory, masculinity studies, hip hop studies and the rhetoric of madness. His current focus is on the intersections of race, (queer) sexuality, gender and class with historical and contemporary literacy research.
Pursuant to those interests he is currently working on several research projects including a book manuscript tentatively titled Rhetorical Outlaws: Literacy, Identity and Resistance in Black Queer Communities - a study of the symbiotic relationship between literacy and the multiplicity of identities in black LGBTQ communities. The study is based on a grounded theory analysis of original interviews with 60 black LGBTQ people living across the United States. Other projects include a critical historical analysis of the rhetorical practices of queer activist/m and the rhetoric of madness as a social, political and cultural formation.
Alongside his research and teaching, Professor Pritchard is a community organizer and activist committed to a vision of social justice. For his scholarship and community work he has received numerous honors including the Scholars for the Dream Award from the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) and the A. Philip Randolph Award for Community Activism from the Wisconsin Black Student Union.