Herman Beavers has taught at Penn since 1989.  Professor Beavers teaches courses in African American and American literature, including courses on Southern Modernism, 20th Century African American Poetry, as well as  "Trading Fours:  The Literatures of Jazz," which is a requisite course in the Jazz and Popular Music minor.  He also teaches a section of the introductory poetry workshop in the Creative Writing Program.  During the 2009-10 academic year, he was a Visiting Fellow at the Center for African American Studies at Princeton University.  His most recent poems have appeared in MELUS, The Langston Hughes Colloquy, and Versadelphia.  He has recently published essays on  August Wilson, Charles Johnson, Ralph Ellison, and Toni Morrison.   He also serves as an advisory editor at African American Review, Modern Fiction Studies, and The Journal of Modern Literature.