Selwyn R. Cudjoe is Professor of Africana Studies, Margaret E. Deffenbaugh and LeRoy T. Carlson Professor in Comparative Literature, and, from 1995 to 1999, was the fourth Marion Butler McLean Chair in the History of Ideas at Wellesley College. He teaches courses on the African American literary tradition, African literature, black women writers, and Caribbean literature. 

A graduate of Fordham University where he received both a B.A. in English (1969) and an M.A. in American Literature (1972), Professor Cudjoe earned a Ph.D. in American Literature from Cornell University (1976). Prior to joining the Wellesley faculty in 1986, he taught at Ithaca College and Cornell, Harvard, Brandeis, Fordham, and Ohio universities. He has been a lecturer at Auburn (N.Y.) State Prison and taught at Bedford-Stuyvesant (N.Y.) Youth-In-Action.

Professor Cudjoe is the author and editor of several books, and has produced several documentaries. He has written for the New York Times; The Washington Post; Boston Globe; Harvard Educational Review; International Herald Tribune; New Left Review; Baltimore Sun; the Amsterdam News; Trinidad Guardian; and Trinidad Express.

Professor Cudjoe is a director of the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago and member of a Cabinet – appointed Round Table Discussion on Race Relations. He is the president of the National Association for the Empowerment of African People (Trinidad and Tobago.)