Professor of English and Comparative Literature and African-American Studies; Director of the Institute for Research in African-American Studies. Publications include: "Who Set You Flowin'?:" The African-American Migration Narrative. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995); If You Can’t Be Free, Be a Mystery: In Search of Billie Holiday (New York: The Free Press, 2001.); Book-in-progress Miles Davis and John Coltrane (tentative title) co-authored with Salim Washington. (New York: Thomas Dunne, 2005)