Anthology of the African American Literary Tradition (Houghton Mifflin) and The. Now that she is back in Tuscaloosa, Harris tells Diverse that she feels “tremendously blessed because I retired to a community with a major Research I university, and I was fortunate to have a dean who responded to the idea of my joining the faculty here. Trudier Harris drafted This Disease Called Strength: The Compensating.

After retiring, she moved into the house without any intention of resuming a career in academia. Painter and South of Tradition by Trudier Harris-Lopez, Southern Literary Journal. : South of Tradition: Essays on African American Literature (Hardback): Language: English. Harris had built a home in Tuscaloosa prior to her retirement from UNC-Chapel Hill.

Harris’ return to Alabama from North Carolina was a bit more planned. I knew it was an opportunity to be with them in this stage of their lives.” “So when the University of South Carolina did the unthinkable and offered me an endowed chair at the age of 55 … I had to think about the things that mattered greatly to me, and one of those things was the health and well-being of my mother and father. “When I was 16 and 17, I really never wanted to come back because I found so many doors closed to me here as a young person growing up, but I came back constantly because my family is here - and you only have one home,” Finney explains.

But Finney tells Diverse why she returned to the state, after receiving one of the highest awards in her field, along with numerous accolades for her body of work.