Patricia Brown

Patricia Brown is a professor in the English department at Azusa Pacific University (APU), where she teaches a variety of courses, such as African American Literature, Ethnic Studies, The Art and Craft of Writing, and American Literature Since 1865. Her dissertation study “Gendering the Pulpit: Religious Discourse and the African-American Female Experience” (2002) traces the entry of African American women into religious discourse and their continuous appropriation of a literary tradition that grants them voice. Brown’s research and teaching interests are in African American literature, African American women’s studies, nineteenth- and twentieth-century American literature, and religious studies and literature. Her current scholarship consists of a study of African American women’s responses to oppression, the Harlem Renaissance and Christianity, and a detailed study of Toni Morrison’s novels. She regularly presents her research at the Conference on Christianity and Literature and the National Association of African American Studies.