Ayesha Hardison’s research interests include twentieth-century and twenty-first-century African American literature, Black women’s writing, African American literary and cultural history, contemporary film and media, and popular culture studies. Her work explores questions of race, gender, genre, social politics, and historical memory.

She is the author of Writing through Jane Crow: Race and Gender Politics in African American Literature (University of Virginia Press, 2014), winner of the Nancy Dasher Award and a Choice Outstanding Academic Title. She is co-editor with Eve Dunbar of African American Literature in Transition: 1930-1940 (Cambridge University Press, 2022) and co-editor with Randal Jelks of two special journal issues, including for The Langston Hughes Review. Additionally, she has published several book chapters as well as articles in African American Review and Meridians. Her current book project explores representations of African American social movement history in novels, film, and material culture.

Hardison has received fellowships and grants from the Ford Foundation, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, National Endowment for the Humanities, Black Metropolis Research Consortium, and Kansas Humanities Council. She is director of the History of Black Writing (HBW), a research project focused on literary recovery and preservation, and co-editor of the multidisciplinary journal Women, Gender, and Families of Color.