Glenda R. Carpio

Glenda R. Carpio is the Powell M. Cabot Professor of English and Professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. She holds a Ph.D. in English from UC Berkeley and a B.A. from Vassar College. Her research focuses on African American literature, humor studies, and intersections of race, immigration, and cultural identity. She has published critically acclaimed works like Laughing Fit to Kill and co-edited African American Literary Studies. Her teaching spans Harvard, NYU, and Compton schools through Teach for America.

Notable awards include the Harvard Abramson Teaching Award and a Fulbright Fellowship. She is affiliated with the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute and has advised initiatives like Fuerza Latina. Current projects explore immigration narratives in American literature.

Her interdisciplinary work bridges literature, art, and historical memory, with contributions to Daedalus, American Literature, and Chronicle of Higher Education. She advises Harvard undergraduates and engages in public discourse on race and culture.