He collaborated with David Ames Curtis to conduct the first scholarly investigation into the life and work of author Harriet Wilson. He identified the Yoruba deity Esu as the origin of a literary device which he found in several authors, and he later argued for the inclusion of more black writers in standard courses in his Loose Canons. He parodied a Wallace Stevens title in his Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man, and he explained a certain concept of African speech as an exchange of hyperbole for no fixed end in Figures in Black and The Signifying Monkey. For 10 
He collaborated with David Ames Curtis to conduct the first scholarly investigation into the life and work of author Harriet Wilson. He identified the Yoruba deity Esu as the origin of a literary device which he found in several authors, and he later argued for the inclusion of more black writers in standard courses in his Loose Canons. He parodied a Wallace Stevens title in his Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man, and he explained a certain concept of African speech as an exchange of hyperbole for no fixed end in Figures in Black and The Signifying Monkey. For 10 points, name this Harvard-based figure in African-American studies and editor of the Encarta Africana.
He collaborated with David Ames Curtis to conduct the first scholarly investigation into the life and work of author Harriet Wilson.
Henry Louis Gates, Jr.