Dana A. Williams is professor of African American literature and dean of the Graduate School at Howard University. Prior to her appointment as the first female dean of the Graduate School at Howard, she served as chair of English there for nine years. She is immediate past president of the Modern Languages Association and a former president of the College Language Association (the oldest and largest professional organization in the US for faculty of color who teach languages and literature) and the Toni Morrison Society. In 2016, she was nominated by President Barack Obama to serve as a member of the National Humanities Council. In addition to her work at Howard, she has held faculty positions at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge; Northwestern University, Evanston, IL as a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow; and Duke University, as a faculty fellow of the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute. She currently serves on the board of the American Council of Learned Societies and the Furious Flower Poetry Center at James Madison University. Her latest book is Toni at Random: The Iconic Writer’s Legendary Editorship (Amistad, 2025).
2025 Festival Session