Courtney Thorsson is an associate professor in the English Department at the University of Oregon, where she teaches, studies, and writes about African American literature from beginnings to present using Black feminist methods. Her book Women’s Work: Nationalism and Contemporary African American Women's Novels (University of Virginia Press, 2013) argues that Toni Cade Bambara, Paule Marshall, Gloria Naylor, Ntozake Shange, and Toni Morrison reclaim and revise cultural nationalism in their novels of the 1980s and 90s. Her writing has appeared in the volume Foodscapes: Food, Space, and Place in a Global Society and publications including Callaloo; African American Review; MELUS; Gastronomica; Contemporary Literature; Legacy; and Public Books. Her book The Sisterhood: How A Network of Black Women Writers Changed American Culture tells the story of how Black women writers and intellectuals transformed political, literary, and academic cultures from the 1970s on and is forthcoming November 2023 from Columbia University Press.