Finding Professional Nourishment in the English Department

Addison R. Cox, a graduate student pursuing a PhD in English, focuses her research on Black women’s writing in the U.S. Cox examines Black speculative fiction from authors like Octavia Butler, Toni Morrison, Jesmyn Ward, N.K. Jemisin. Through the lens of literature, she researches how Black women have written about, theorized, and created unique orientations to the human body. 

“My work is highly interested in the racial, sexual, political, economic, religious, and spiritual systems these writers either negotiate with, mediate, or (re)envision throughout their work,” Cox says. In 2024, Cox obtained the Philips Fellowship, where she spent the year completing archival research at the Archie Givens Sr. Collection of African American Literature and curating an exhibit for the Elmer L. Andersen Library. She describes this work as instrumental for her graduate career.  

What does your work focus on?

As my work engages with Blackness as a socio-political construct, I find my readings of Black women’s writing in the U.S. necessarily engage with Black authors across the diaspora, including interlocutors such as Nalo Hopkinson, Maryse Conde, Dionne Brand, and others. I consider my work to be constantly in conversation with other disciplines, especially African American, music/sound, and religious studies.

What questions and ideas are you most interested in exploring right now? What problems does your work seek to address?

Recently, my work has been concerned with the relationship between sound/music, race, and literature. Some include: What can the irrepresentability of sound within literature illuminate about the ways in which race and gender are constructed and subsequently mapped onto or inscribed into the body? What does Black music sound like and, more importantly, how do we (as readers and as listeners) know and interpret this? How have sound, music, and literature—produced by both Black and non-black authors—worked to codify competing perceptions of Black representation and/or Black culture? How have Black women, historically, written about religious and/or spiritual practices? 

What I find important and most energizing about these questions are the ways in which they, in my view, demand each other to be asked. I feel they take seriously—or encourage one to take seriously—the ways in which sexism, anti-Blackness, and heteronormative systems of categorization existed and continue to exist as violent modalities of control. More importantly, however, I am excited by the ways in which these questions also encourage one to read for the ways that these violent systems have been and can potentially be resisted in the effort of personal and political progress.

What brought you to the University of Minnesota? 

While searching for programs, the University of Minnesota had always been my first choice. A major component of this decision came from the faculty I met during my initial visits and exploration of the department. In particular, faculty members such as Dr. Megan Finch, Dr. Rachel Trocchio, and Dr. Nathaniel Mills. 

Their exciting work in Black feminist theory and Black women’s writing, Puritan writing, religion and intellectual history, and radical, Black, leftist literary figures from the Civil Rights era, respectively, were highly impactful in drawing me to the University of Minnesota—partly due to the ways in which I envisioned their research engaging with my own and primarily due to the innovative ways of reading and thinking that I continue to see demonstrated within the department. I am constantly delighted by the research interests and projects of my fellow English graduate students and find the community we have created (and continue to create) to be both personally and professionally nourishing.  

Have you received any notable awards or financial support for your graduate studies? What has that meant to you?

During the course of my graduate career, the most notable fellowships I received include the Diversity of Views and Experience (DOVE) Fellowship (2023), the Phillips Fellowship (2024), and the Beverly and Richard Fink Summer Research Fellowship (2025). 

During my DOVE fellowship, I had the amazing opportunity to participate in a summer research fellowship before my first year of graduate school, which gave me the opportunity to engage with the resources at UMN and other incoming graduate students.

During my Beverly and Richard Fink Fellowship, I was able to focus singularly on my academic research to produce an article that will be published this coming fall and prepare to take my preliminary exams in the coming spring. I am grateful, not only for these intellectual opportunities, but for the financial support received from these fellowships which has allowed me to continue my studies.

What's next for you?

In the upcoming year(s), I am excited to take my preliminary exams and move from student to candidate, as well as begin developing my dissertation. I hope to continue balancing my intellectual and community engagement to encourage others—especially those around, but not in, the university—to turn to communal resources for personal, intellectual, and political action. I am also excited to engage more with the local music scene in Minneapolis as I continue to uncover and explore this city as my home.

This story was written by Avery Vrieze, an undergraduate student in CLA.