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Draws on twenty years of firsthand teaching experience, student stories, and campus data to show how culturally grounded reading and discussion can support intellectual growth and improve college success for African American men.
The Convergence tells the inside story of a first-semester literature course for Black men at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, taught every fall since 2004. Drawing on twenty years of classroom practice, student voices, and campus data linking the course to higher persistence and graduation rates, the book shows how early, culturally grounded engagement with poetry, speeches, rap, fiction, and visual culture fosters deep reading and intellectual confidence. Across four chapters—on slavery and creativity, "verbal dazzle," fiction reading, and learning to love what we criticize—the book bridges humanities scholarship with insights from reading science and aesthetics (saliency, the aesthetic mindset) to explain how and why this model works. Written for scholars, teachers, advisors, and higher-ed leaders, it offers an adaptable playbook, readings, practices, and program design to support Black men from day one and revitalize student-centered pedagogy in African American literary studies.
"In The Convergence, Howard Rambsy II demonstrates how African American literary studies can cultivate critical thinking, cultural confidence, and lasting reading practices among collegiate Black men. Blending literature, music, film, comics, and classroom experiences, this book expands how we think about pedagogy, mentorship, and Black intellectual life." — Dana A.Williams, author of Toni at Random:The Iconic Writer's Legendary Editorship
"I was one of thirty first-semester Black men in Dr. Rambsy's class, where we explored poetry and politics, cultural criticism, short stories, and works by Frederick Douglass, Malcolm X, and the like. By exposing me to authors who’d shape my consciousness, he introduced me to the potential weight of my own words." — Dometi Pongo, journalist and former MTV News correspondent
"The Convergence is full of examples of what works—and not only when teaching Black students or African American literature, though Rambsy is right that far too little attention is given to Black college-aged men in discussions of higher education today. I kept taking notes about what I could do in my classes or what text I wanted to incorporate. But the book is not just a how-to guide. It is part educational narrative, part sociological text, part literary text—which makes it both very rich and a joy to read. All humanities instructors invested in supporting all of our students as their reading skills shift will benefit from this book." — Amy E. Earhart, author of Digital Literary Redlining: African American Anthologies, Digital Humanities, and the Canon
Howard Rambsy II is Distinguished Research Professor of Literature at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. He is the author of Bad Men: Creative Touchstones of Black Writers and Writing Black Panther: Ta-Nehisi Coates and Representation Struggles.
Introduction
1. The Slavery-Creativity Paradox
2. Verbal Dazzle and Verse Decoders
3. Collegiate Black Men as Fiction Readers
4. Loving What We Criticize
Conclusion
Appendices: Lists for Intellectual Endeavors
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Discography
Index