Barbara Christian facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Barbara Christian
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| Born |
Barbara T. Christian
December 12, 1943 |
| Died | June 25, 2000 (aged 56) |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | educator, feminist, writer |
| Years active | 1963-2000 |
| Known for | African-American feminist studies |
Barbara T. Christian (born December 12, 1943 – died June 25, 2000) was an American author and professor. She taught African-American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Barbara Christian wrote many books and over 100 articles. She was best known for her 1980 book, Black Women Novelists: The Development of a Tradition. This book helped many people learn about the history of Black women writers.
Early Life and Education
Barbara Christian was born on December 12, 1943. Her hometown was St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands. Her parents were Ruth and Alphonso Christian. Her father was a judge. Both her parents strongly encouraged their children to study hard.
Barbara loved to read. She often wondered why there were no African-American or Afro-Caribbean women in the books she read. When she was fifteen, Barbara moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She attended Marquette University and graduated in 1963.
Her parents wanted her to study medicine. But Barbara chose to study literature instead. She went to Columbia University in New York City. At that time, Columbia did not offer Black studies. However, Barbara chose Columbia to be close to the Harlem intellectual community. She became friends with the famous writer Langston Hughes. He introduced her to many Black writers. Zora Neale Hurston, a writer who was not well-known then, greatly influenced Barbara. She especially loved Hurston's book, Their Eyes Were Watching God.
While studying, Barbara taught English for a short time. She taught at the College of the Virgin Islands and Hunter College. Later, she became a lecturer at the City College of New York. She worked in a program called SEEK. This program helped minority and less privileged students get a higher education. In 1970, Barbara Christian earned her PhD. Her special study was about Black writers during the Harlem Renaissance.
Career and Important Works
After getting her PhD, Barbara Christian became an assistant professor at City College. She taught English there. The next year, she moved to the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley). In 1972, she played a key role in starting the African-American Studies department at the university. She wanted to help more minority students get an education. So, she helped create the University Without Walls in 1971.
In 1978, Barbara Christian made history at UC Berkeley. She became the first African American woman to be given a permanent teaching position, called tenure. In the same year, she became the head of the African American Studies Department. During the 1970s, she also started working on the Norton Anthology of African American Literature. She continued this work for twenty years. She was one of the first scholars to bring the writings of Toni Morrison and Alice Walker to the attention of universities.
In 1980, Christian published her first book. It was called Black Women Novelists: The Development of a Tradition, 1892–1976. This book was very important. It was the first full study of Black feminist literature from the 1800s to the 1970s. The book quickly became a guide for other scholars. It helped start the academic study of Black feminists. This book became her most famous work.
Barbara Christian was the head of African American Studies until 1983. In 1985, she published another book, Black Feminist Criticism: Perspectives on Black Women Writers. In this book, she said that scholars were focusing too much on complex theories. She believed they should focus more on the actual stories and traditions in literature.
In 1986, Christian was promoted to full professor. She was the first woman of African descent to reach this rank. That same year, she became the first head of a new doctoral program for ethnic studies. She held this position for three years.
In 1987, Barbara Christian wrote an important essay called "The Race for Theory." It was published in a journal called Cultural Critique. In this essay, she talked about how literary theory was becoming too complicated. She felt it was hard to understand and left out many voices. She argued that this way of thinking made it harder for people of color, Black women, and others to be seen as important thinkers. She believed that literary theory should not be the same for every book. Instead, she said, "my 'method'... relates to what I read and to the historical context of the writers I read."
In 1991, UC Berkeley gave Christian the Distinguished Teaching Award. In 1994, she received the MELUS Distinguished Contribution to Ethnic Studies Award. This award came from The Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States.
In April 2000, Barbara Christian received UC Berkeley's highest honor, the Berkeley Citation. She passed away on June 25, 2000, due to lung cancer.
