Kalenda Eaton is an Associate Professor in The Clara Luper Department of African and African American Studies at the University of Oklahoma and Director of Oklahoma Research for the Black Homesteader Project. She is a scholar of Black literary studies, studies of the American west, and Black social and cultural history. Eaton is noted for her teaching and public scholarship on African Americans in the Great Plains region, and Black women writers. She is the author of Womanism, Literature, and the Transformation of the Black Community, 1965-1980 (Routledge 2008; reprint 2012). Recent publications include “Black Women Writers Reclaiming Western Literature,” the co-edited New Directions in Black Western Studies, and “Teaching the Black West” (with Michael Johnson in Teaching Western American Literature).
She is a Fulbright scholar, Associate Fellow of the Center for Great Plains Studies, and advocate for the Public Humanities. She is also heir to a historic legacy of land and community in East Texas and Oklahoma.