Kimberly Blockett, PhD, is a professor and chair of Africana Studies at the University of Delaware. Her educational pathway, starting as a returning adult student, has grounded her career as an educator, scholar and equity advocate.

Dr. Blockett is a literary historian whose interdisciplinary scholarship integrates religious history, cultural geography, and travel studies. Her archival research has earned fellowship support from the Ford Foundation, Harvard Divinity School, Smithsonian, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Her publications include The Audacious Ministry of Zilpha Elaw: Race, Religion and Rebellion (Duke UP, 2026), a scholarly edition of the Memoirs of Zilpha Elaw (West Virginia UP, 2021), Mapping Black Women’s Geographies (Routledge, 2024), and multiple essays and book chapters in publications including the Cambridge History of African American Literature, MLA Approaches to Teaching Hurston, 19th-century American Women Writers and Theologies of the Afterlife, Multi-Ethnic Literature of the US, African American Review, a/b: Autobiography Studies, and Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers.

She is an elected member of the American Antiquarian Society, the editorial board of Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers, and the Board of the Society of Senior Ford Fellows. She is also a board member of the Germantown Relief Society, the nation’s oldest known charitable organization.