Faculty Profile

An internationally recognized Langston Hughes scholar, Donna Akiba Sullivan Harper has taught English at Spelman College since 1987 and served as Dean of Undergraduate Studies from January of 2003 to December of 2004. She is currently a professor of English teaching composition and African-American literature.

She is the author of the only book-length study of Hughes’s celebrated Jesse B. Semple stories, Not So Simple: The “Simple” Stories by Langston Hughes (1995). She has also edited four volumes of short fiction by Hughes.

Since 1998 Harper has been the campus coordinator for the UNCF-Mellon Program at Spelman College. She has mentored several students, of whom two have completed the Ph.D. and others are in graduate study.

She has lectured in China, Turkey, and throughout the United States on Langston Hughes and is the author of numerous articles and book reviews.

A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Oberlin College, she earned her Master of Arts degree and Ph.D. from Emory University as a Danforth Graduate Fellow.

Harper's awards and recognition include the Faculty Award in African-American Literature, 1999, in recognition of exemplary scholarship and dedication to excellence at Spelman College; The Langston Hughes Prize for Excellence in Literature and Vision (1998); the Spelman College 1995 Presidential Faculty Award for Scholarly Achievement; and the 1991 Distinguished Teacher Award, funded by the Sears-Roebuck Foundation Teaching Excellence and Campus Leadership Award Program.

Harper is vice president of the College Language Association, and is a founding member and past president of the Langston Hughes Society. She is a charter member of the Toni Morrison Society.

The Later Simple Stories (The Collected Works of Langston Hughes, Volume 8), edited and with an introduction by Donna Akiba Sullivan Harper.  Columbia, Missouri:  University of Missouri Press, 2002. ISBN:  0-8262-1409-6

The Early Simple Stories (The Collected Works of Langston Hughes, Volume 7), edited and with an introduction by Donna Akiba Sullivan Harper.  Columbia, Missouri:  University of Missouri Press, 2002.  ISBN:  0-8262-1370-7

Langston Hughes Short Stories, edited by Akiba Sullivan Harper.  Introduction by Arnold Rampersad.  New York: Hill & Wang, 1996.
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780809016037
ISBN: 978-0-8090-1603-7 or ISBN-10: 0-8090-1603-6

Not So Simple:  The "Simple" Stories by Langston Hughes.  Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 1995. ISBN  0-8262-0980-7.
This remains the only book-length study of Hughes’s Simple.
https://upress.missouri.edu/9780826210883/not-so-simple/

The Return of Simple, edited by Akiba Sullivan Harper.  Introduction by Arnold Rampersad.  New York:  Hill & Wang, (division of Farrar, Straus, & Giroux), 1994.
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780809015825
ISBN: 978-0-8090-1582-5   or  ISBN-10: 0-8090-1582-X