Tara Bynum

Tara Bynum serves as Assistant Professor of English and African American Studies at the University of Iowa, specializing in pre-1800 African American literary histories. Her research investigates how enslaved and free Black individuals in the eighteenth century cultivated pleasure and community resilience amid systemic oppression through religious faith, interpersonal bonds, and nation-building practices.

Her academic credentials include:

• Ph.D. in English from Johns Hopkins University
• B.A. in Political Science from Barnard College

Dr. Bynum's groundbreaking monograph Reading Pleasures (under contract with University of Illinois Press) reframes pleasure as radical resistance against white supremacy, revealing how Black communities shaped early American nation-building beyond New England. Her scholarship appears in top-tier journals including Early American Literature, Common-Place, and Legacy, establishing her as a leading voice in reconstructing erased Black intellectual traditions through textual analysis of religious narratives, correspondence networks, and communal practices.