Koritha Mitchell is an associate professor of English at the Ohio State University where she specializes in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century African American literature, racial violence throughout American literature and culture, and black drama & performance.
As an undergraduate, Mitchell was interested in what black women writers were saying between 1870 and 1920, and whether they came together with white women for political change. She thought lynching would have been the unifying force, but was proven wrong. But by the time she discovered that, she was hooked on the "lynching plays." Mitchell visits Writers Talk to discuss her book "Living with Lynching: African American Lynching Plays, Performance, and Citizenship, 1890-1930," which focuses on black-authored lynching dramas written before 1930.