Dr. Sherita L. Johnson

Sherita L. Johnson is the Director of the College of Liberal Arts’ Africana Research Center (ARC) and an Associate Professor of English. In collaboration with Penn State’s Center for Black Digital Research (CBDR), Prof. Johnson is a 2024-2025 Just Transformations Commonwealth Faculty Fellow as funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

With a concentration on nineteenth-century African American literature and print culture, her work is grounded by archival research that illuminates extraordinary experiences of Black writers, activists, and public intellectuals. Examining the life and writings of Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, tracking Frederick Douglass in the colored conventions movement, and investigating African American experiences during Reconstruction are current projects that inform her teaching to broaden critical perspectives of race, U.S. regionalism, and Black organizing in nineteenth century studies.

In her public scholarship, Prof. Johnson has formed community partnerships with museums, cultural centers, and civic organizations. She counts among her most significant contributions programs and initiatives that bring attention to Black people’s experiences in freedom movements, Black voices silenced in archival collections, and Black culture undervalued in historical narratives. To this end, she has given public lectures, created civic engagement curriculum, and consulted on building public monuments.