Stanford Humanities Center
Dr. Dana Elle Murphy works on literatures and cultures in the Americas and Caribbean, with especial interests in poetry and poetics and the ethics and practice of care. She is appointed as Assistant Professor of Black Studies and English at Caltech (California Institute of Technology). She holds a PhD in English from the University of California, Irvine.
SHC Project
Foremother Love: Phillis Wheatley and Black Feminist Criticism
Murphy’s first book, Foremother Love, recounts the beauty, promise, and sorrow of the Black feminist critical tradition through the life and work of "Phillis," one of its early predictors if not practitioners. Indeed, while many readers know Phillis as a poet, this project highlights her parallel work as a critic: circulating, explaining, and responding to her work and its wider contexts in complex and intricate ways.
Dana Elle Murphy on Black Feminist Criticism (JSTOR Daily)
Foremother Love: Phillis Wheatley and Black Feminist Criticism (Duke University Press, 2025)
Learn more about Murphy’s work at foremotherlove.com.
