Frances Smith Foster
Foster interviewed atEmory School of Law in 2012
Born	(1944-02-08)February 8, 1944 (age 81)
Children	3
Academic background
Alma mater	University of California, San Diego University of Southern California Miami University
Thesis	Slave narratives : text and social context (1976)
Academic work
Institutions	Emory University San Diego State University University of California, San Diego

Frances Smith Foster (born 1944) is an American researcher and emeritus Professor of African-American studies and women's history. She has previously served as the Charles Howard Candler Professor of English and Women's Studies atEmory University.

Foster grew up inDayton, Ohio.^[1] Her parents were Quinton Smith, one of the 2 first Black bus drivers in the city and Mabel Smith (née Gullette), a beautician. Frances is the oldest of their five children.^[2] Smith attended the all-black Wogaman Elementary School and graduated fromRoosevelt High School.^[2]

She earned her bachelor's degree atMiami University, where she studied education. She madePhi Beta Kappa and graduated cum laude.^[2] She earned a master's degree at theUniversity of Southern California in 1971.^[2] After graduating Foster moved to theUniversity of California, San Diego, where she investigated slave narratives as part of a doctoral programme in British and American literature.^[3] She has said that during her graduate studies in the 1970s she did not encounter the work of Black women scholars.^[4][5] She received her Ph.D. there in 1976.^[2]

In the early days of her academic career, Foster was appointed as the Chair of Black Students atSan Diego State University.^[4] In 1994, she publishedWitnessing Slavery: The Development of Antebellum Slave Narratives, which was the first text to explore the genre of slave literature. She has argued that African-American literature owes a considerable amount to slave narratives; including humour, irony and the creation of the protagonist character of "The Heroic Slave".^[6] TheModern Language Association has said: "Frances proved that the slave narrative was a dynamic and ever-evolving genre of black self-expression." She also studied the literary contributions of African-American women, arguing that Black women not only founded the literary traditions of African Americans but that of all American women's literature.^[6] When Foster joinedEmory University in 1996, she became Director of the Institute for Women's Studies.^[4] She contributed to the 1997Norton Anthology of African American Literature.^[7] She held Fellowships atHarvard University andLeiden University.^[8]

Foster served on various committees for theModern Language Association, including the Division of Ethnic Languages and Literatures, Afro-American Literature Discussion Group and executive committee.^[9]

In 2009, Foster was awarded the Francis Andrew March award and in 2010 the Hubbell Medal, both of theModern Language Association.^[9] She was the first African-American woman to win such an award.^[10]

In 2011, she was awarded theBrandeis University Toby Gittler Prize "for outstanding and lasting contributions to racial, ethnic and religious relations", and theEmory University Feminists Founders award.^[11][12] The following year, the Society for the Study of American Women Writers announced that Foster was the inaugural winner of the Karen Dandurand Lifetime Achievement Medal.^[13]

• Foster, Frances Smith (1944– ). (1994).Witnessing slavery : the development of ante-bellum slave narratives. The University of Wisconsin Press.ISBN 978-0-299-14214-8.OCLC 985816329.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
• Foster, Frances Smith. (1993).Written by herself literary production by African American women, 1746-1892. Indiana University Press.ISBN 0-253-20786-X.OCLC 1178676105.
• Andrews, William L.; Frances Smith Foster;Trudier Harris, eds. (1997).The Oxford Companion to African American Literature. Oxford University Press.ISBN 0-19-506510-7.OCLC 35305158.

• 1944 births
• Living people
• 20th-century African-American academics
• 20th-century American academics
• 21st-century African-American academics
• 21st-century American academics
• Academics from Ohio
• Emory University faculty
• People from Dayton, Ohio
• University of California, San Diego faculty
• University of Southern California alumni

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Articles with hCards
• CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list