Miriam Thaggert is a Professor of English at the University at Buffalo and teaches courses on 19th, 20th, and 21st century African American literature. Her first book, Images of Black Modernism: Verbal and Visual Strategies of the Harlem Renaissance (2010) studies the literature and photography of the 1920s New Negro Movement. Her second book, Riding Jane Crow: African American Women on the American Railroad (2022) is a social history of Black women’s train travel in the United States, from the 19th to mid-20th century (Awards: Honorable Mention – 2023 Mary Nickliss Prize in U.S. Women’s and/or Gender History, Organization of American Historians; Honorable Mention – 2023 Leticia Woods Brown Book Prize, Association of Black Women Historians; Finalist - 2023 Rosalyn Terborg-Penn Book Prize, Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora). She is a co-editor of A History of the Harlem Renaissance (2021) and African American Literature in Transition, 1920-30 (2022).

Selected Recent Essays:

“In Search of Steele: Digitizing The Life and Adventures of Mrs. Carrie Steele.” Legacy: Society for the Study of American Women Writers. Forthcoming in 2026.

“Unprotected: White Gloves and Black Femininity in Ann Petry’s The Street.” In Cambridge Critical Concepts: Fashion and Literature, ed. by Elizabeth Sheehan. Cambridge University Press. Forthcoming in 2026.

“Literary Reparation: Lists, Till and The Trees.” MELUS: Multiethnic Literature of the United States 50.2 (2025): 1-24. doi.org/10.1093/melus/mlaf027

“Black Writings Visuals: African American Modernism in Nugent, Ligon, and Rankine.” In The New Modernist Studies, ed. Douglas Mao. Cambridge University Press, 2021. 167-180.

Recent Courses Taught:

Women Writers

African American Literature (19th century)

Contemporary Black Literature and Literary Theory (graduate seminar)

Selected Topics: Toni Morrison