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Dr.Jerry W Ward,Jr. is Distinguished Professor emeritus of English and African World Studies at Dillard University in New Orleans. A literary scholar, editor, and writer whose publications include The Katrina Papers: A Journal of Trauma and Recovery, The China Lectures: African American Critical and Literary Issues, Trouble the Water: 250 Years of African American Poetry, The Richard Wright Encyclopedia (with Robert J. Butler), and The Cambridge History of African American Literature (with Maryemma Graham), Ward has been recognized internationally as one of the leading experts on Richard Wright. His 1993 Introduction to Wright's autobiography, Black Boy (1945), is an important guide for the understanding of the book and its author as well. More important, Ward is a devoted intellectual who has challenged numerous students at home and abroad through academic learning and research, critical thinking, and scholarly writing. This interview was conducted by e-mail from December 22, 2015 toJanuary 31, 2016.
John Zheng: Dr. Ward, you are a distinguished Richard Wright scholar. I want to begin by asking, what drew you to Richard Wright? What drove you to choose him as a principal subject for research?
Jerry W. Ward, Jr.: Living most of my youth in Mississippi and reading Uncle Tom's Children when I was an undergraduate at Tougaloo College drew me to Wright. When I did my doctoral work at the University of Virginia, I chose to write my dissertation on "Richard Wright and His American Critics, 1938-1960." My concentration was literary theory and criticism, so it seemed reasonable to apply what I learned about the hidden dimensions of literary study in examining how Wright's reputation emerged.
JZ: Which other literary influences have there been?
JWW: We are influenced by everything that we read. It is difficult for me to account for all of the influences on my thought and efforts to write over a period of more than fifty years. Some of my early writings were influenced by Carl Sandburg, T S. Eliot, andJames Baldwin. Kenneth Burke, LeRoiJones/Amiri Baraka, Margaret Walker, Tom Dent, Bakhtin, William Faulkner, Kalamu ya Salaam, Shakespeare and English Renaissance writers, W E. B. Du Bois, and Ralph Ellison have also shaped my thinking about literature and life and purpose.
JZ: In what way did Wright's works catch your attention?