Hortense J. Spillers

Hortense J. Spillers is an American literary critic and black feminist theorist. She is the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor in English at Vanderbilt University. Considered one of the architects of contemporary black feminist criticism, she is the author of several texts that have made her one of the most influential thinkers of her generation.  Spillers is best known for her 1987 scholarly article "Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: An American Grammar Book," one of the most cited essays in African-American literary studies.