Juyoun Jang

Dr. Juyoun Jang received her Ph.D. in English from the University of Mississippi and her M.A. in American Culture and B.A. in Korean literature and Philosophy from Sogang University. Dr. Jang specializes in African American literature, critical prison studies, and Black feminism.

Dr. Jang has taught incarcerated students at Parchman/Mississippi State Penitentiary and the Grundy County jail, TN, African American literature courses. Her research and teaching interests are inspired by her incarcerated students’ stories and resilience. Her incarcerated students’ radical imaginations, creativity, and artistic resistance through African American literature and diverse forms of art have encouraged her to create global learning and healing communities in college classrooms. She helps her nonincarcerated students cultivate global learning communities for empathy and social justice by teaching African American literature and sharing her incarcerated students’ individual and collective stories through African American literature and various forms of art.

Dr. Jang is currently co-editing The Global South special issue on “Incarcerated and Resistance” (forthcoming, Spring 2024) and translating Kiese Laymon’s Heavy: An American Memoir into Korean (forthcoming, Summer 2024). She is also revising an article titled “Robby: A Contemporary Fugitive Slave in John Edgar Wideman’s Brothers and Keepers” and working on an essay on abolition pedagogy.

Dr. Jang was born and raised in South Korea. She has lived in Australia, Canada, and Ireland. She has traveled to many countries, such as Malaysia, Thailand, and New Zealand. She also worked for large corporate companies and taught middle school students before beginning her M.A. Her experience encountering numerous migrants, immigrants, and refugees in Australia, Canada, Ireland, and South Korea has inspired her to study and teach African American literature. At Washington College, she mainly teaches African American literature courses.