Eric Gardner Spotlight

    Deeply interested in stories and story-telling, Eric Gardner is a literary historian dedicated to understanding how nineteenth-century Americans—especially African Americans—interacted with print. Much of Gardner’s work focuses on recovering a fuller sense of early Black stories, and he consistently engages with his students on the tough questions that impel his research: How were these texts made? Who read them? Why haven’t we heard of them?

    His first two books, Unexpected Places: Relocating Nineteenth-Century African American Literature (Mississippi 2009) and Black Print Unbound: The Christian Recorder, African American Literature and Periodical Culture (Oxford 2015), significantly expanded the study of early Black literature by demanding consideration of writers from diverse geographic locations who were often writing in modes that traditional literary critics dismissed.

    His books, essays, and editorial work have garnered wide acclaim, including a pair of Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, two “Best Book” awards from the Research Society for American Periodicals, and a Saginaw County NAACP “Regional Hero” Award. In recognition of his “field-changing scholarship in Black print culture,” he was elected to membership in the American Antiquarian Society in 2024.

    His latest book, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper’s Civil War and Reconstruction (Oxford 2025), explores the life and work of a major Black author-activist and reconsiders how we tell (and don’t tell) stories of Black women writers. The book was featured in, among other venues, an American Antiquarian Society virtual event rebroadcast on C-SPAN’s American History TV.

    Gardner’s classrooms often include archival material drawn from his research and focus not only on what we read but how and why we read. Students in his American literature courses have often been among the first in the nation to see newly recovered texts, and, as he shared in his 2025 SVSU House Family Award for Teacher Impact acceptance speech, he aims to build and participate in communities focused on collaborative, experiential learning.