Kenneth W. Warren is the Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor of English at the University of Chicago. He teaches courses that reflect his interest in genre, the politics of race, and the relation of culture to politics. He is the author of two books, Black and White Strangers: Race and American Literary Realism (University of Chicago Press 1993) and So Black and Blue: Ralph Ellison and the Occasion of Criticism (University of Chicago Press 2003) and has written numerous articles in publications including American Literary History, boundary 2, and New Literary History.