Kenneth L. Johnson II
Assistant Professor and Director of Literature and Film
Kenneth L. Johnson II is an Assistant Professor of African American Literature and joined the faculty at College of Charleston in 2022. He teaches courses in African American literature/culture and writing, with a specific interest in 20th and 21st century works of fiction. He currently serves as the Director of the Literature, Film, and Cultural Studies Program and is an affiliate faculty member of the African American Studies and Women’s and Gender Studies programs. In AY 2024-2025, he held a fellowship in the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art in conjunction with the First-Year Experience program. His research interests include Black Southern fiction; the works of Kiese Laymon, Black Southern boyhood, and Black men’s public letters. His current research projects investigate the tradition of Black men’s public letter writing and Black masculinity, as well as surveying contemporary Black Southern fiction to formulate a theory of Black Southern boyhood literacy.
His research can be found in Southern Cultures, The Journal of Multimodal Rhetorics, and the Black History Bulletin, the journal for the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH).
Education
Ph.D. – English with an emphasis in African American Literary and Cultural Studies, Florida State University
M.A. – English (Literature, Media, and Culture), Florida State University
B.A. – English, Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University
Research Interests
Black Southern fiction
The works of Kiese Laymon
Black men’s letter writing
Black Southern boyhood and literacy
Black men’s memoirs/autobiographies
Hip-Hop studies
Courses Taught
Introduction to Academic Writing
“WHO DAT: New Orleans, World Politics, and Cultural Rhetoric” (First-Year Experience Program Learning Community)
“Blackish: Introduction to African American Literature and Culture”
Survey of American Literature
Introduction to English Studies
“American Requiem: African American Literature”
“The GOAT: Toni Morrison”
“Fire in Little Africa”
“(Re)Constructions: Contemporary Black Men’s Memoirs
“Knocking the Hustle: Black Men’s Public Letters”
“Black Southern Genius: The Works of Kiese Laymon”
“Contemporary Black Southern Fiction”
Recent Publications
Johnson, Kenneth L., II and Alison Hawkins. "It's Him and I, Aquemini: Reimagining OutKast in Kiese Laymon's Long Division." Southern Cultures, vol. 31 no. 2, 2025, p. 62-77. Project MUSE, https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/scu.2025.a962461.
Johnson II, Kenneth L. “The ‘Laymon Letter’: Kiese Laymon and Epistolary Art in the HBCU Writing Classroom.” The Journal of Multimodal Rhetorics, vol. 9 no. 1, 2025, https://journalofmultimodalrhetorics.com/9-1-johnson.
Teague, Latoya M. and Kenneth L. Johnson II. “Epistolary Labor: Letter Writing Activism.” Black History Bulletin, vol. 87, no. 2, 2024, p. 23-25. Project Muse, https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/bhb.2024.a936559.
Johnson II, Kenneth L. “From Teacher to Text: An Open Letter to Two of My Former Students.” How to Decolonize the Feminist and Queer Studies Classroom, edited by Atia Sattar, np:press, 2025, pp. 233-250.