About
Early Education
I was born in New York City to Jamaican immigrants. My parents instilled in me the strong values of hard work and education. I attended Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan, where I pursued my dual academic interests in English and Mathematics. Afterward, I matriculated at Princeton University, where I earned a bachelor's degree in English language and literature, along with certificates of proficiency in American Studies, African American Studies, and Applied and Computational Mathematics. I was drawn especially to African American Studies, whose focus on race and culture enabled me to understand the world in which I lived as well as my own identity in more sophisticated ways. After Princeton, I completed a doctoral study in English language and literature at Brown University.
Career as a Professor & Administrator
Today, I am Dean of the Faculty and William S. Tod Professor of English at Princeton University. Prior to this role, I worked as a professor at the University of Maryland, College Park; Boston University, where I also served as Chair of the English Department and Associate Dean of the Faculty for the Humanities; and New York University, where I was Dean of the College of Arts and Science.
Scholarship
I specialize in African American literary history from the eighteenth century to the present; U.S. literary history between the Civil War and World War II; race, ethnic, and cultural studies; and theories of literature, aesthetics, and intellectual historiography. I am the author of two books and the editor of eight more on African American literature and literary criticism. For this scholarship I have won awards from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and the American Council of Learned Societies. My third authored book, a comprehensive biography of the legendary African American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, is slated for release from Princeton University Press in 2022, coinciding with the 150th anniversary of the poet’s birth.
Awards & Honors
Phi Beta Kappa (Honorary Inductee), Epsilon of Massachusetts, Boston University, 2014
ACLS Fellowship, American Council of Learned Societies, 2014
Walter Jackson Bate Fellowship in English Literature, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, 2010
Third Annual Peter Connelly Lecturer in English, Grinnell College, 2009
American Library Association “Best of the Best from the University Presses” for The Complete Stories of Paul Laurence Dunbar, 2007
Career Enhancement Fellowship, Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, 2005
Postdoctoral Fellowship, David C. Driskell Center for the Study of the African Diaspora, University of Maryland, College Park, 2002
Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship in Humanistic Studies, Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, 1997
Life & Family
As a child, my parents were always talking with me about how education is a pathway toward opportunities. My father used to say to me, “The harder you work, the luckier you get.” Today, I am married to Dr. Renée Boynton-Jarrett; she and I both were first-year students at Princeton when we first met. She is a professor at Boston University School of Medicine, pediatrician and social epidemiologist, and together we have three children--two daughters and a son. My hobbies include spending time with my family, reading, exercising, and traveling.