Koritha Mitchell is a literary historian, cultural critic, and professor of English. She is the feminist scholar who coined the term know-your-place aggression to emphasize that marginalized groups are attacked for succeeding, not because they have done something wrong. Mitchell is author of the award-winning book Living with Lynching and author of the 2020 book From Slave Cabins to the White House. She is also editor of Frances E. W. Harper’s 1892 novel Iola Leroy and of the first book-length autobiography by a formerly enslaved African American woman, Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861). Her public commentary has appeared in outlets such as Time, Black Perspectives, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Review of Books, MSNBC, CNN, and Good Morning America. In October 2023, she was recognized as a champion of women in the public sphere with a Progressive Women's Voices IMPACT Award from the Women's Media Center.
Mitchell’s scholarly articles include “James Baldwin, Performance Theorist, Sings the Blues for Mister Charlie,” published by American Quarterly, and “Love in Action,” which appeared in Callaloo and draws parallels between lynching and violence against LGBTQ communities. After 18 years at Ohio State University, Mitchell now teaches at Boston University. Online, she’s @ProfKori, and more information can always be found at korithamitchell.com
