Tidwell, John Edgar

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Tidwell, John Edgar

PERSONAL:

Education: Washburn University, B.A., 1969; Creighton University, M.A., 1971; University of Minnesota, Ph.D. 1981.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of English, University of Kansas, 1445 Jayhawk Blvd., Lawrence, KS 66045-2115. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Educator, writer, and editor. Maur Hill Catholic College Preparatory School, Atchison, KS, instructor, 1968-1970; Atchison Neighborhood Center, Atchison, director, 1969-1970; Creighton University, Omaha, NE, instructor in New Careers Program, 1970-1971, lecturer in English, 1971-73; University of Nebraska, Omaha, instructor, 1971-1973, acting chairman of Black Studies Department, 1972-73; St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN, instructor in English, 1973-1977 (on leave 1975-77), director of American Minority Studies, 1973-74; University of Minnesota, teaching associate II, 1975-1978; Carleton College, Northfield, MN, visiting instructor, 1977, 1979; University of Kentucky, Lexington, assistant professor, 1981-87 (on leave 1985-86); Miami University, Oxford, OH, assistant professor, 1987-92, associate professor, 1993-99; Kansas State University, Manhattan, visiting scholar, 1993; University of Kansas, Lawrence, Langston Hughes Visiting Professor of English and of African and African American Studies, 1994, associate professor, 1999—, fellow, Humanities Research Fellowship, Hall Center for the Humanities, 2006. Also Yale University, visiting fellow, 1985-1986; Harvard University, nonresident fellow, 2003-04.

MEMBER:

Modern Language Association, College Language Association, Langston Hughes Society.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Alumni of Notable Achievement, College of Liberal Arts, University of Minnesota, 1994; also recipient of numerous fellowships, including the National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship, American Council of Learned Societies fellowship, Putnam Dana McMillan Fellowship, and American Lutheran Church Future Faculty fellowship.

WRITINGS:

(Editor and author of introduction) Frank Marshall Davis, Livin' the Blues: Memoirs of a Black Journalist and Poet, University of Wisconsin Press (Madison, WI), 1992.

(Editor and author of introduction), Frank Marshall Davis, Black Moods: Collected Poems, University of Illinois Press (Urbana, IL), 2002.

(Editor and author of introduction, with Mark A. Sanders) Sterling A. Brown, Sterling A. Brown's A Negro Looks at the South, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2007.

(Editor and author of introduction, with Cheryl R. Ragar) Montage of a Dream: The Art and Life of Langston Hughes, foreword by Arnold Rampersad, University of Missouri Press (Columbia, SC), 2007.

(Editor and author of introduction) Frank Marshall Davis, Writings of Frank Marshall Davis: A Voice of the Black Press, University Press of Mississippi (Jackson, MS), 2007.

Also editorial consultant for Prentice-Hall Publishing Company, 1998.

SIDELIGHTS:

John Edgar Tidwell is an English professor who has also served as editor of books featuring notable African American writers. Tidwell has edited several books featuring the work of Frank Marshall Davis, who rose to prominence as a poet and journalist during the Great Depression of the 1930s and on through World War II. Because of the social issues he addressed in his poetry, especially the subjugation of blacks by southern white society, Davis also came under the scrutiny of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the House Un-American Activities Committee.

"Thanks to the meticulous research and dedicated efforts of John Edgar Tidwell, the works of reporter, columnist, editor, critic, political activist, and poet Frank Marshall Davis have now entered their third life,’ noted James A. Miller in the African American Review. Miller was referring to three segments of Davis's life, beginning with his initial rise to writing prominence and his eventual move to Hawaii in 1948, where he lived in relative obscurity. The third phase, according to Miller, is the publication of Davis's memoir and a renewed appreciation of Davis's works.

Tidwell is the editor of Davis's 1992 memoir, Livin' the Blues: Memoirs of a Black Journalist and Poet and of a poetry collection by Davis titled Black Moods: Collected Poems. In a review of the poetry collection in the African American Review, Miller noted: ‘With the publication of Black Moods, Tidwell calls … for greater consideration for the inclusion of Frank Marshall Davis in the still-emerging canon of African American literature.’ Michael V. Williams wrote in the Black Issues Book Review: ‘John Edgar Tidwell rightfully proclaims that Frank Marshall Davis is a powerful voice that should not be forgotten."

Tidwell is also the editor of Writings of Frank Marshall Davis: A Voice of the Black Press. This collection of writings by Davis focuses on his columns and news commentaries on race relations and American culture, as well as his book and music reviews. In addition to writing the book's introduction, Tidwell presents contextual notes on each major subject area Davis explored.

In Sterling A. Brown's A Negro Looks at the South, Tidwell and coeditor Mark A. Sanders provide a collection of the writings of this poet, teacher, critic, essayist and folklorist. According to Black Issues Book Review contributor Robert Fleming, Brown had a great impact on the writings of African Americans immediately following World War II. ‘In this volume, his previously uncollected oral history is edited and given thematic organization,’ noted Jim Hahn in the Library Journal. Specifically, Tidwell and Sanders present previously unpublished excerpts from Brown's recordings and writings concerning how the separate-but-equal Jim Crow laws enacted by Southern and border states between 1876 and 1965 adversely affected the black community. Commenting on Brown's style, Fleming noted: ‘Whether Brown is in a bus station or inside a one-room schoolhouse or a club car, he effectively depicts the people and surroundings with details of the portraits like the crystalline camera work of Walker Evans or James Van Der Zee."

Tidwell collaborated with Cheryl R. Ragar to edit Montage of a Dream: The Art and Life of Langston Hughes. Hughes was an African American poet, novelist, short-story writer, playwright and columnist who is closely associated with the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s. In addition to his poetry in collections such as The Weary Blues and Fine Clothes to the Jew, Hughes is most noted for his novel, Not without Laughter, which won the Harmon Gold Medal for literature, and his strong support of black pride in the 1960s, which included his writings about influential blacks in American history with books such as Famous American Negroes, Famous Negro Music Makers, and Fight for Freedom: The Story of the NAACP. In Montage of a Dream, Tidwell and Ragar present eighteen essays focusing on Hughes's work, including Hugh- es's better-known works, as well as his lesser-known writings in areas such as children's literature and essays.

Tidwell also contributed an essay to Montage of a Dream titled ‘The Sounds of Silence: Langston Hughes as a ‘Down Low’ Brother?’ In the essay, Tidwell writes about Hughes's sexuality and the influence it had on Hughes's writings. A Reference & Research Book News contributor noted that some of the other contributing scholars assess Hughes's writings from ‘perspectives such as psychological, performance, [and] gender."

Commenting on the publication in 2007 of three of his edited books featuring the writings of Brown, Hughes, and Davis, Tidwell told Susan Fahlgren Rothschild in an article on LJWorld.com: ‘Graduate students won't have to search through the libraries, through newspapers and periodicals looking for works by these African-Americans. By making [them] available, I am hoping to make it possible for the next generation of scholars to find the significance and importance of these writers for themselves."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

African American Review, summer-fall, 2003, James A. Miller, review of Black Moods: Collected Poems, p. 466.

Black Issues Book Review, September-October, 2002, Michael V. Williams, review of Black Moods, p. 49; March-April, 2007, review of Writings of Frank Marshall Davis: A Voice of the Black Press, p. 27; May-June, 2007, Robert Fleming, review of Sterling A. Brown's A Negro Looks at the South, p. 43.

Journal of American History, March, 1994, Keith E. Byerman, review of Livin' the Blues: Memoirs of a Black Journalist and Poet, p. 1520.

Library Journal, February 15, 2007, Jim Hahn, review of Sterling A. Brown's A Negro Looks at the South, p. 134.

Reference & Research Book News, August, 2007, review of Montage of a Dream: The Art and Life of Langston Hughes.