Using ProQuest One Literature’s database of dissertations, I took a look at six Black women writers – Gwendolyn Brooks, Nikki Giovanni, Zora Neale Hurston, Harriet Jacobs, Toni Morrison, and Alice Walker – decade by decade from 1970 – 2026. I was curious about their appearances in dissertations and MA theses during that time and how they evolved. I was intrigued by the rise of Morrison as the now most central figure in African American literary studies.
During the 1970s, Morrison was cited in just 9 dissertations and theses, making her next to the lowest, only above Jacobs. During the 1980s, Morrison steadily became a more cited author rising to 144. She was now behind only Hurston at 159 citations and Walker at 255 citations.
During the 1990s was when Morrison became the most cited of the group at 1,514. During the 2000s, she rose to 2,434 citations, and she dipped, by her standards, to 1,749 during the 2010s. So far, from 2020 – 2026, she’s at 1,056 citations.
The big shift for Morrison occurs after 1987, with the publication of Beloved. That work stands as Morrison’s most critically acclaimed. The tabulation of the citations on the ProQuest dissertation database makes it possible to see how dramatically Morrison’s position within African American literary studies expanded during the decades following that novel’s publication.
From just 9 citations in the 1970s to more than 2,400 in the 2000s, Morrison experienced an increase of well over 26,000 percent, illustrating how rapidly she moved from a relatively minor presence in dissertations to the most studied writer among this group. No other writer in the dataset experienced a shift as dramatic, moving from near the margins of dissertation research in the 1970s to the most studied Black woman writer by the 1990s.
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